Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/198

160 At last (it was the Christmas-night;

Stars shone after a day of storm)

He sees float past an iceberg white,

And on it—Christ!—a living form.

That furtive mien, that scowling eye,

Of hair that red and tufted fell,

It is oh, where shall Brandan fly?—

The traitor Judas, out of hell!

Palsied with terror, Brandan sate;

The moon was bright, the iceberg near.

He hears a voice sigh humbly, "Wait!

By high permission I am here.

"One moment wait, thou holy man!

On earth my crime, my death, they knew;

My name is under all men's ban:

Ah! tell them of my respite too.

"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night

(It was the first after I came,

Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite,

To rue my guilt in endless flame),—

"I felt, as I in torment lay

'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,

An angel touch mine arm, and say,—

Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!

"'Ah! whence this mercy, Lord?' I said.

The leper recollect, said he,

Who asked the passers-by for aid,

In Joppa, and thy charity.

"Then I remembered how I went,

In Joppa, through the public street,

One morn when the sirocco spent

Its storms of dust with burning heat;