The Prophecy Of St. Oran: Part Ii Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Mathilde Blind

The Prophecy Of St. Oran: Part Ii Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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I	A
THERE was a windless mere on whose smooth breast	B
A little island flushed with purple bloom	C
Lay gently cradled like a moorhen's nest	B
It glowed like some rich jewel 'mid the gloom	C
Of sluggish leagues of peat and black morass	D
Without or shrub or tree or blade of grass	D
	-
	-
II	A
But on the isle itself the birch was seen	E
With its ethereal foliage like some haze	F
Floating among the rowan's vivid green	E
The ground with fern all feathered and ablaze	F
With heath's and harebell's hyacinthine hue	G
Was mirrored in the wave's intenser blue	G
	-
	-
III	A
This was the immemorial isle of graves	H
Here under nameless mound and dateless stone	I
The generations like successive waves	H
Had rolled one o'er the other and had gone	J
As these go indistinguishably fused	K
Their separate lives in common death confused	K
	-
	-
IV	L
And here amid the dead Columba chose	M
To found God's holy house and sow His word	N
Already here and there the walls arose	M
Built from the stones imbedded in the sward	O
These did the natives without mortar pile	P
As was the ancient custom of their isle	P
	-
	-
V	L
For many of them to the work were won	Q
By reverence for the saint and thus apace	R
The chapel grew which they had first begun	Q
As dedicate to God's perpetual praise	F
So many of the monks again were free	L
To give thought wholly to their ministry	L
	-
	-
VI	L
And ever first in hastening to his task	S
St Oran was though last to seek repose	M
Columba's best beloved he still would ask	S
For heaviest share of duty while he chose	M
Rude penances till shadow like he grew	G
With fasts and vigils that the flesh subdue	G
	-
	-
VII	L
Yet there was that which would not be subdued	T
A shape a presence haunting every dream	U
Fair as the moon that shines above a flood	V
And ever trembles on the trembling stream	U
Sweet as some gust of fragrance unaware	W
Stealing upon us on the summer air	W
	-
	-
VIII	L
Even so it stole upon his ravished heart	X
Suffusing every fibre with delight	Y
Till from his troubled slumber he would start	X
And as with ague shivering and affright	X
Catch broken speech low murmuring in his ears	Z
And feel his eyelids ache with unshed tears	A2
	-
	-
IX	A2
But it befell one windy afternoon	B2
While monks and men were busied with the roof	L
Laying the beams through which the sun and moon	B2
Might shed their light as yet without reproof	L
That there came one across the lonely waste	X
Toward these men of God crying in haste	X
	-
	-
X	A2
'Ye say ye came to save us save us then	C2
Save us if ye spake truth and not a lie	L
Famine and fever stalk among us men	C2
Women and children are struck down and die	L
For lo the murrain smites our cowering sheep	D2
The fishers haul no fish from out the deep	D2
	-
	-
XI	A2
'Ye tell us that your God did multiply	L
A few small fishes wherewithal He fed	X
A multitude in sooth if 'tis no lie	L
Then come ye holy men and give us bread	X
For they are starving by the waterside	X
Come then and give us bread ' he loudly cried	X
	-
	-
XII	A2
He was a man inspiring dread surprise	A2
Half naked with long glibs of bristling hair	W
In fiery meshes tumbling o'er his eyes	A2
Which like a famished wolf's from out its lair	W
Glanced restlessly his dog behind him came	E2
Whose lolling tongue hung down like scarlet flame	E2
	-
	-
XIII	A2
'Let me arise and go to them withal '	-
Cried Oran flinging down his implement	X
'This heavy tribulation is a call	F2
From the Most High a blessed instrument	X
To compass their salvation let me go	G2
Teach them what mercy worketh in their woe '	-
	-
	-
XIV	L
'Go then my son and God go with thee still	H2
While I abide to speed His temple here '	-
Said St Columba 'and thy basket fill	H2
With herbs and cordials also wine to cheer	I2
And bread to feed the poor so that their days	A2
May still endure to God's eternal praise '	-
	-
	-
XV	L
Then Oran and that wild man forth did fare	W
And o'er the little lake they rowed in haste	X
And mounting each a small and shaggy mare	W
They ambled o'er that solitary waste	X
Then through a sterile glen their road did lie	L
Whose shrouded peaks loomed awfully on high	L
	-
	-
XVI	L
When for a mile or two they thus had gone	J
The mountains opened wide on either hand	X
And lo amid those labyrinths of stone	I
The sea had got entangled in the land	X
And turned and twisted struggling to get free	A2
And be once more the immeasurable sea	A2
	-
	-
XVII	L
It was a sorcerous elemental place	A2
O'er which there now came rushing from the plain	J2
Like some dark host whom yelling victors chase	A2
A moving pillar of resistless rain	J2
Shivering the gleaming lances in its flight	X
Against the bastions of each monstrous height	X
	-
	-
XVIII	L
Fast fast it raced before the roaring gale	K2
With shrieks and frenzied howlings that did shake	L2
The very stones with long resounding wail	K2
And in outlying gorges would it wake	L2
The startled echo's sympathetic scream	U
Then whirling on would vanish like a dream	U
	-
	-
XIX	A2
Would vanish dream like whither no man knows	A2
Fading afar in vaporous gulfs of light	X
While the wet mountain tops flushed like a rose	A2
And following the spent tempest in its flight	X
Its hues ethereal mantling o'er the gloom	C
There glowed the rainbow's evanescent bloom	C
	-
	-
XX	A2
And while that rain still drenched him to the skin	M2
St Oran unappalled intoned a psalm	N2
And lifting up his voice amidst the din	M2
He sang 'We laud Thee Lord through storm and calm	O2
In the revolving stars we see Thine hand	X
The sun and moon rise as Thou dost command	X
	-
	-
XXI	A2
'We laud Thee for the evening and the morn	P2
And the prolific seasons' changing boon	B2
For singing birds and flowers and ripening corn	P2
For tides that rise and fall beneath the moon	B2
As in a mirror darkling do we see	A2
The shadow that Thou castest on the sea '	-
	-
	-
XXII	A2
Up many a wild ascent down many a steep	D2
Clothed with scant herbage rode that battered pair	W
Where lay the bleaching bones of mangled sheep	D2
And carrion crows wheeled hoarsely in the air	W
At last through mist and darkness they espied	X
Small lights that twinkled by the waterside	X
	-
	-
XXIII	A2
There in dark turf built hovels close to earth	Q2
Lay the poor sufferers on their beds of heath	R2
Gnawed to the very bone by cruel dearth	Q2
Cold to the marrow with approaching death	S2
Thither came Oran like some vision bright	X
And ministered to each one through the night	X
	-
	-
XXIV	L
And so dispensing alms he went and came	E2
Stooping to enter the last house of all	F2
There by the peat fire's orange coloured flame	E2
Whose flashes fitfully did rise and fall	F2
On the smoke blackened rafters sat a crone	I
Ancient it might be as the lichened stone	I
	-
	-
XXV	L
Fast through her bony fingers flies the thread	X
And as her foot still turns the whirring wheel	T2
She seems to spin the yarn of quick and dead	X
But oh what makes St Oran's senses reel	T2
Whose is the shape clad in its golden hair	W
That turns and tosses on the pallet there	W
	-
	-
XXVI	L
Like some wan water lily veiled in mist	X
When puffs of wind its tender petals shake	L2
Whose chalice by the shining moonbeams kissed	X
Sways to and fro upon the swelling lake	L2
So white so wan so wonderfully fair	W
Showed Mona tossing mid her golden hair	W
	-
	-
XXVII	L
What should he do Ah whither should he turn	U2
Why had God let this trial come again	C2
Her beauty half revealed did straightly burn	U2
Through his hot eyeballs to his kindling brain	J2
Was it his duty to go hence or stay	X
He wavered gazed on her then turned away	X
	-
	-
XXVIII	L
But that old woman tottered to the door	V2
And clutched his cassock with a shaking hand	X
And mumbled 'Priest ah dost thou shun the poor	W2
They say that ye go bragging through the land	X
Of some new God called Christian Charity	X
But in our need ye turn from us and fly '	-
	-
	-
XXIX	A2
So spake the crone but Oran bowed his head	X
And murmured 'If thou bid'st me I abide '	-
With downcast eyes he turned towards the bed	X
In fervent prayer low kneeling by its side	X
At last he rose pale cold and deadly still	H2
With heart subdued to his stern Maker's will	H2
	-
	-
XXX	A2
Thus through her fever did he tend the maid	X
Who babbled wildly in delirious trance	A2
Of her lost home and her loved kindred laid	X
In alien earth and of a countenance	A2
Fair as a spirit's comforting her pain	J2
But soon withdrawn to its own hea	G