May
16: How should we celebrate this Feast of St. Brendan – the Irish monk
who first discovered America?
Drink
St. Brendan’s Irish Cream liqueur over ice and read this poem by Tolkien
(author of Lord of the Rings) aloud to your friends.
Try
not to get your tears in your liqueur!
The
Death of Saint Brendan
by
J.R.R. Tolkien
At
last out of the deep seas he passed,
and
mist rolled on the shore;
under
clouded moon the waves were loud,
as
the laden ship him bore
to
Ireland, back to wood and mire,
to
the tower tall and grey,
where
the knell of Cluian-ferta’s bell
tolled
in the green Galway.
Where
Shannon down to Lough Derg ran
under
a rainclad sky
Saint
Brendan came to his journey’s end
to
await his hour to die.
‘O!
tell me, father, for I loved you well,
if
still you have words for me,
of
things strange in the remembering
in
the long and lonely sea,
of
islands by deep spells beguiled
where
dwell the Elven-kind:
in
seven long years the road to Heaven
or
the Living Land did you find?’
‘The
things I have seen, the many things,
have
long now faded far;
only
three come clear now back to me:
a
Cloud, a Tree, a Star.
We
sailed for a year and a day and hailed
no
field nor coast of mean;
no
boat nor bird saw we ever afloat
for
forty days and ten.
We
saw no sun at set or dawn,
but
a dun cloud lay ahead,
and
a drumming there was like thunder coming
and
a gleam of fiery red.
Upreared
from sea to cloud then sheer
a
shoreless mountain stood;
its
sides were black from the sullen tide
to
the red lining of its hood.
No
cloak of cloud, no lowering smoke,
no
looming storm of thunder
in
the world of men saw I ever unfurled
like
the pall that we passed under.
We
turned away, and we left astern
the
rumbling and the gloom;
then
the smoking cloud asunder broke,
and
we saw the Tower of Doom:
in
its ashen head was a crown of red,
where
the fishes flamed and fell.
Tall
as a column in High Heaven’s hall,
its
feet were deep as Hell;
grounded
in chasms the water drowned
and
buried long ago,
it
stands, I ween, in forgotten lands
where
the kings of kings lie low.
We
sailed then on, till the wind had failed,
and
we toiled then with the oar,
and
hunger an thirst us sorely wrung,
and
we sang our psalms no more.
A
land at last with a silver strand
at
the end of strenght we found;
the
waves were singing in pillared caves
and
pearls lay on the ground;
and
steep the shores went upward leaping
to
slopes of green and gold,
and
a stream out of rich and teeming
through
a coomb of shadow rolled.
Through
gates of stone we rowed in haste,
and
passed and left the sea;
and
silence like dew fell in that isle,
and
holy it seemed to be.
As
a green cup, deep in a brim of green,
that
with wine the white sun fills
was
the land we found, and we saw there stand
on
a laund between the hills
a
tree more fair than ever I deemed
might
climb in Paradise;
its
foot was like a great tower’s root,
it
height beyond men’s eyes;
so
wide its branches, the least could hold
in
shade an acre long,
and
they rose as steep as mountain-snows
those
boughs so broad and strong;
for
white as a winter to my sight
the
leaves of that tree were,
they
grew more close than swan-wing plumes,
all
long and soft and fair.
We
deemed then, maybe, as in a dream,
that
time had passed away
and
our journey ended; for no return
we
hoped, but there to stay.
In
the silence of that hollow isle,
in
the stillness, then we sang-
softly
us seemed, but the sound aloft
like
a pealing organ rang.
Then
trembled the tree from crown to stem;
from
the limbs the leaves in air
as
white birds fled in wheeling flight,
and
left the branches bare.
From
the the sky came dropping down on high
a
music not of bird,
not
voice of man, nor angel’s voice;
but
maybe there is a third
fair
kindred in the world yet lingers
beyond
the foundered land.
Yet
steep are the seas and the waters deep
beyond
the White-tree Strand.’
‘O!
stay now father! There’s more to say.
But
two things you have told:
The
Tree, the Cloud; but you spoke of three.
The
Star in mind you hold?’
‘The
Star? Yes, I saw it, high and far,
at
the parting of the ways,
a
light on the edge of the Outer Night
like
silver set ablaze,
where
the round world plunges steeply down,
but
on the old road goes,
as
an unseen bridge that on the arches runs
to
coasts than no man knows.’
‘But
men say, father that ere the end
you
went where none have been.
I
would here you tell me, father dear,
of
the last land you have seen.’
‘In
my mind the Star I still can find,
and
the parting of the seas,
and
the breath as sweet and keen as death
that
was borne upon the breeze.
But
where they they bloom those flowers fair,
in
what air or land they grow,
what
words beyond the world I heard,
if
you would seek to know,
in
a boat then, brother, far afloat
you
must labour in the sea,
and
find for yourself things out of mind:
you
will learn no more of me.’
In
Ireland, over wood and mire,
in
the tower tall and grey,
the
knell of Cluain-ferta’s bell
was
tolling in green Galway.
Saint
Brendan had come to his life’s end
under
a rainclad sky,
and
journeyed whence no ship returns,
and
his bones in Ireland lie.
(from
The Notion Club Papers: History of Middle Earth, vol. 9, 1992 edition. )
