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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=456070" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Prophecy Of St. Oran: Part IV</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>It is the night: across the starless waste<br>Of silent heaven the solitary moon<br>Flits like a frightened maid who flies in haste,<br>And wild with terror seems to reel and swoon,<br>As in her rear the multitudinous clouds<br>Follow like spectral huntsmen in their shrouds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II.<br>And sometimes the wild rout o'ertakes its prey,<br>And holds her captive in the lowering sky,<br>But ever and anon she bursts away,<br>And her white orb floats lustrously on high,<br>And with its lambent flame transmutes the haze<br>Into a living halo for her face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III.<br>And far o'er black morass and barren moor<br>The fitful splendour of the moonlight falls,<br>Its broken eddies sweep across the floor,<br>And dance in chequered silver on the walls,<br>And flood the chapel's grave-encircled site<br>With sudden flashes of unearthly light.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV.<br>And as the unquiet moonlight comes and flies<br>Athwart the little roofless house of prayer,<br>Like some lost spirit strayed from Paradise<br>Or dæmon-angel of the realms of air,<br>A pallid shape flits through the open door<br>And flings itself, low wailing, on the floor;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>V.<br>And wailing, wailing, lay there in its pain,<br>When suddenly it snatched from the out the sod<br>Some late-forgotten spade, while tears like rain<br>Poured from its eyes, enough to melt the clod,<br>And digging hard the small breach grew apace,<br>Till the soil lay like molehills round the place.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VI.<br>But through the silence suddenly there swells<br>Along the gusty breaths of midnight air<br>The mellow tinkling sound of magic bells,<br>Such as the pious brethren love to wear,<br>To keep the fiends and goblins off that prowl<br>For ever near to catch a tripping soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VII.<br>And as the monks, chanting a solemn hymn,<br>Draw nigh the chapel to perform their rite,<br>That wailing shape flies far into the dim<br>Recess behind the altar full of night;<br>While they with burning torches move in file<br>To consecrate afresh their sacred pile.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VIII.<br>Three days, three nights have fled since in that spot,<br>Where fiends and dæmons revelled unforbid,<br>They buried that false monk who was a blot<br>Upon their rule: but since the earth has hid<br>His bones accursed, God's sun has shone again,<br>Nor has fresh ill assailed their prospering fane</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IX.<br>Which now they enter, singing hymns of praise,<br>Columba at their head--when lo, behold<br>The grave yawns open and a bloodless face,<br>The face of him they knew, rose from the mould:<br>Slowly he rose from the incumbent clay<br>Lifting the white shroud in the moonlight grey.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>X.<br>Slowly his arm beneath the winding-sheet<br>He waved three times, as though to bid them hear;<br>Then in the moonlight rose he to his feet<br>Showing his shrunken body, and his sere<br>Discoloured hair, and smouldering eyes that lie<br>Sunk in their sockets, glaring hot and dry.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XI.<br>Slowly he raised his voice--once rich in tone<br>Like sweetest music, now a mournful knell<br>With dull sepulchral sounds, as of a stone<br>Cast down into a black unfathomed well--<br>And murmured, 'Lo, I come back from the grave,--<br>Behold, there is no God to smite or save.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XII.<br>'Poor fools! wild dreamers! No, there is no God;<br>Yon heaven is deaf and dumb to prayer and praise;<br>Lo, no almighty tyrant wields the rod<br>For evermore above our hapless race;<br>Nor fashioned us, frail creatures that we be,<br>To bear the burden of eternity.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIII.<br>'Hear it, self-torturing monks, and cease to wage<br>Your mad, delirious, suicidal war;<br>There is no devil who from age to age<br>Waylays and tempts all souls of men that are;<br>For ever seeking whom he may devour,<br>And damn with wine and woman, gold and power.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIV.<br>'Deluded priests, ye think the world a snare,<br>Denouncing every tender human tie!<br>Behold, your heaven is unsubstantial air,<br>Your future bliss a sick brain's phantasy;<br>There is no room amid the stars which gem<br>The firmament for your Jerusalem.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XV.<br>'Rejoice, poor sinners, for I come to tell<br>To you who hardly dare to live for fright;<br>There is no burning everlasting hell<br>Where souls shall be tormented day and night:<br>The fever ye call life ends with your breath;<br>All weary souls set in the night of death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XVI.<br>'Then let your life on earth be life indeed!<br>Nor drop the substance, snatching at a shade!<br>Ye can have Eden here! ye bear the seed<br>Of all the hells and heavens and gods ye made<br>Within that mighty world-transforming thought<br>Which permeates the universe it wrought--</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XVII.<br>'Wrought out of stones and plants and birds and beasts,<br>To flower in man, and know itself at last:<br>Around, about you, see what endless feasts<br>The spring and summer bountifully cast!<br>'A vale of tears,' ye cry--'if ye were wise,<br>The earth itself would change to Paradise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XVIII.<br>'The earth itself--the old despisèd earth,<br>Would render back your love a thousandfold,<br>Nor yet afflict the sons of men with dearth,<br>Disease, and misery, and drought and cold;<br>If you would seek a blessing in her sod,<br>Instead of crying vainly on your God.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIX.<br>'Cast down the crucifix, take up the plough!<br>Nor waste your breath which is the life in prayer!<br>Dare to be men, and break you impious vow,<br>Nor fly from woman as the devil's snare!<br>For if within, around, beneath, above<br>There is a living God, that God is Love.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XX.<br>'The fool says in his heart, There is no God,'<br>Cried St. Columba, white with Christian ire<br>'Seize Oran, re-inter him in the sod<br>And may his soul awake in endless fire:<br>Earth on his mouth--the earth he would adore,<br>That his blaspheming tongue may blab no more.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXI.<br>Then like swart ravens swooping on their prey<br>These monks rushed upon Oran; when there came<br>One gliding towards them in wild disarray<br>With hair that streamed behind her like a flame<br>And face dazed with the moon, who shrilly cried,<br>'Let not death part the bridegroom from his bride.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXII.<br>But deeming her some fiend in female guise,<br>They drive her forth with threats, till, crazed with fear,<br>Across the stones and mounded graves she flies<br>Towards that lapping, moon-illumined mere;<br>And like a child seeking its mother's breast<br>She casts her life thereon, and is at rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXIII.<br>And while the waves close gurgling o'er her head,<br>A grave is dug whence he may never stray,<br>Or come back prophesying from the dead,--<br>All shouting as they stifle him with clay:<br>'Earth on his mouth--the earth he would adore,<br>That his blaspheming tongue may blab no more.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Mathilde+Blind">Mathilde Blind</a><div class=q>
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It is the night: across the starless waste
Of silent heaven the solitary moon
Flits like a frightened maid who flies in haste,
And wild with terror seems to reel and swoon,
As in her rear the multitudinous clouds
Follow like spectral huntsmen i..."></div>
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