Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/199

Rh "And in the street a leper sate,

Shivering with fever, naked, old;

Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,

The hot wind fevered him fivefold.

"He gazed upon me as I passed,

And murmured, Help me, or I die!

To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,

Saw him look eased, and hurried by.

"O Brandan! think what grace divine,

What blessing must full goodness shower,

When fragment of it small, like mine,

Hath such inestimable power!

"Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I

Did that chance act of good, that one!

Then went my way to kill and lie,

Forgot my good as soon as done.

"That germ of kindness, in the womb

Of mercy caught, did not expire;

Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom,

And friends me in the pit of fire.

"Once every year, when carols wake,

On earth, the Christmas-night's repose,

Arising from the sinner's lake,

I journey to these healing snows.

"I stanch with ice my burning breast,

With silence balm my whirling brain.

O Brandan! to this hour of rest,

That Joppan leper's ease was pain."

Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes;

He bowed his head, he breathed a prayer,

Then looked—and lo, the frosty skies!

The iceberg, and no Judas there!