The Legends of St. Patrick

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SAINT PATRICK AND THE TWO PRINCESSES. FEDELM ' THE RED ROSE, ' AND ETHNA ' THE FAIR. Like two sister fawns that leap, Borne, as though on viewless wings, Down bosky glade and ferny steep, To quench their thirst at silver springs, From Cruachan, through gorse and heather, Raced the Royal Maids together. From childhood thus the Twain had rushed Each mor n to Clebach's fountain-cell, Ere earliest dawn the East had flushed, To bathe them in its well: Each morn with joy their young hearts tingled; Each morn as?conquering cloud or mist? The first beam with the wavelet mingled, Mouth to mouth they kissed. They stand by the fount with their unlooped hair? A hand each raises?what see they there ? A white form seated on Clebach stone; A kinglike presence: the monks stood nigh: Fronting the dawn he sat alone; On the star of morning he fixed his eye. That crosier he grasped shone bright; but brighter The sunrise flashed from Saint Patrick's mitre ! They gazed without fear. To a kingdom dear, From the day of their birth, those Maids had been; Of wrong they had heard; but it came not near; They hoped they were dear to the Power Unseen. They knelt when that Vision of Peace they saw; They knelt, not in fear, but in loving awe: The ' Red Rose ' bloomed like that East afar; The ' Fair One' shone like that morning star. Then Patrick rose: no word he said, But three times made the sacred Sign; At the first, men say that the demons fled; At the third flocked round them the Powers divine Unseen. Like children devout and good, Hands crossed on their bosoms, the maidens stood. ' Blessed and holy ! This land is Eire: Whence come ye to her, and the King our sire ?' We come from a Kingdom far off, yet near, Which the wi...