Laughed with his latest beam. The hours went by:
The brethren paced the shore or musing sat,
But still their Patriarch knelt and still gave thanks
For all the marvellous chances of his life
Since those his earlier years when, slave new-trapped,
He comforted on hills of Dalaraide
His hungry heart with God, and, cleansed by pain,
In exile found the spirit's native land.
Eve deepened into night, and still he prayed:
The clear cold stars had crowned the azure vault;
And, risen at midnight from dark seas, the moon
Had quenched those stars, yet Patrick still prayed on:
Till from the river murmuring in the vale,
Far off, and from the morning airs close by
That shook the alders by the river's mouth,
And from his own deep heart a voice there came,
"Ere yet thou fling'st God's bounty on this land
There is a debt to cancel. Where is he,
Thy five years' lord that scourged thee for his swine?
Alas that wintry face! Alas that heart
Joyless since earliest youth! To him reveal it!
To him declare that God who Man became
To raise man's fall'n estate, as though a man,
All faculties of man unmerged, undimmed,
Had changed to worm and died the prey of worms,
That so the mole might see!"

Thus Patrick mused
Not ignorant that from low beginnings rise
Oftenest the works of greatness; yet of this