Ceased the hail To rattle on the ever barren boughs, And friendlier sound was heard. Beside his door Wayworn the messengers of Patrick stood, And showed the gifts, and held his missive forth. Then learned that lost one all the truth. That sage Confessed by miracles, that prophet vouched By warnings old, that seer by words of might Subduing all things to himself—that priest, None other was than the uncomplaining boy Five years his slave and swineherd! In him rage Burst forth, with fear commixed, as when a beast Strains in the toils. “Can I alone stand firm?” He mused; and next, “Shall I, in mine old age, Byword become—the vassal of my slave? Shall I not rather drive him from my door With wolf hounds and a curse?” As thus he stood He marked the gifts, and bade men bare them in, And homeward signed the messengers unfed. But Milcho slept not all that night for thought, And, forth ere sunrise issuing, paced a moor Stone-roughened like the graveyard of dead hosts, Till noontide. Sudden then he stopt, and thus Discoursed within: “A plot from first to last, The fraudulent bondage, flight, and late return; For now I mind me of a foolish dream Chance-sent, yet drawn by him awry. One night Methought that boy from far hills drenched in rain Dashed through my halls, all fire. From hands and head, From hair and mouth, forth rushed a flaming fire White, like white light, and still that mighty flame Into itself took all. With hands outstretched I spurned it. On my cradled daughters twain It turned, and they were ashes. Then in burst The south wind through the portals of the house, Tempest rose-sweet, and blew those ashes forth Wide as the realm. At dawn I sought the knave; He glossed my vision thus: ‘That fire is Faith— Faith in the God Triune, the God made Man, Sole light wherein I walk, and walking burn; And they that walk with me shall burn like me By Faith. But thou that radiance wilt repel, Housed through ill-will, in Error’s endless night. Not less thy little daughters shall believe With glory and great joy; and, when they die, Report of them, like ashes blown abroad, Shall light far lands, and health to men of Faith Stream from their dust.’ I drave the impostor forth: Perjured ere long he fled, and now returns To reap a harvest from his master’s dream”— Thus mused he, while black shadow swept the moor. So day by day darker was Milcho’s heart, Till, with the endless brooding on one thought, Began a little flaw within that brain Whose strength was still his boast. Was no friend nigh? Alas! what friend had he? All men he scorned; Knew truly none. In each, the best and sweetest Near him had ever pined, like stunted growth Dwarfed by some glacier nigh. The fifth day dawned: And inly thus he muttered, darkly pale: