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Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;

I doubt not thou art heard, my son:

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As well as if thy voice to-day

Were praising God, the Pope's great way.

"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome Praises God from Peter's dome."

Said Theocrite, "Would God that I
Might praise him that great way, and die!"

Night passed, day shone,

And Theocrite was gone.

With God a day endures alway,

A thousand years are but a day.

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God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night
Now brings the voice of my delight.”

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Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,

Spread his wings and sank to earth;

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,

Lived there, and played the craftsman well; 28

And morning, evening, noon and night,
Praised God in place of Theocrite.

And from a boy, to youth he grew:
The man put off the stripling's hue;

The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay:

And ever o'er the trade he bent,
And ever lived on earth content.

(He did God's will; to him, all one If on the earth or in the sun.)

God said, "A praise is in mine ear;
There is no doubt in it, no fear:

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So sing old worlds, and so

New worlds that from my footstool go.

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Clearer loves sound other ways:

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I miss my little human praise."

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell
The flesh disguise, remained the cell.

'T was Easter Day: he flew to Rome, And paused above Saint Peter's dome.

In the tiring-room close by
The great outer gallery,

With his holy vestments dight,
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:

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And all his past career

Came back upon him clear,

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;

And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer:

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And rising from the sickness drear,
He grew a priest, and now stood here.

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To the East with praise he turned,
And on his sight the angel burned.

"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell, And set thee here; I did not well.

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"Vainly I left my angel-sphere,

Vain was thy dream of many a year.

"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped

Creation's chorus stopped!

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"With that weak voice of our disdain, Take up creation's pausing strain.

"Back to the cell and poor employ:

Resume the craftsman and the boy!"

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Theocrite grew old at home;

A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome.

One vanished as the other died:
They sought God side by side.

1844.

Robert Browning.

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SAINT BRANDAN

SAINT BRANDAN sails the northern main;
The brotherhoods of saints are glad.
He greets them once, he sails again;

So late!-such storms!-The Saint is mad! 4

He heard, across the howling seas,
Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;
He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,
Twinkle the monastery-lights.

But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd-
And now no bells, no convents more!

The hurtling Polar lights are near'd,
The sea without a human shore.

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.

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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) —

'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,

"I felt, as I in torment lay

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 ask'd the passers-by for aid,

In Joppa, and thy charity.

"Then I remember'd how I went,

In Joppa, through a public street,

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