Breton Faith. A summer nightfall on a summer sea ! From sandy ridges wildering o’er the deep, The wind’s familiar under-song recalls The fishermen to duty, though that eve To unversed eyes their embarkation seem’d Rather a work of festival than toil. Women were there in gay precise attire, Girls at their skirts, and boys before at play, And many an infant sweet asleep on arm. Emulous which the first shall set his boat Free-floating from the clutches of deep sand, Men lean and strive ; till one, and two, and all, Poised in descent, receive the leaping crews : And following close, where leads the ripply way, One craft of heavier freight and larger sail. Serene and silent as th’ horizon moon, That fair flotilla seeks the open main. Some little room of waters sever’d now Those seeming sons of peaceful industry From their diseased and desperate fatherland, That France, where reign’d and raged for many a year Madness, (the fearful reservoir of strength Which God will open, at his own high will, In men and nations,) so that very babes Would tear the mother-breast of ancient Faith To suck the bloody milk of Liberty. The Christian name was outcast there and then ; For Power and Passion were the people’s gods, And every one that worshipp’d not must die. The shore extended one thin glittering line, When, at the watch’d-for tinkling of a bell, Fast fall the sails, and round their captain-boat, Which rested steady as the waters would, Each other bent its own obedient prow, Making imperfect rays about a sun : Nor paused they long before great change of form Came o’er that centre. From the uncouth deck Rose a tall altar, ’broider’d curiously, With clear outcarven crucifix i’ th’ midst Of tapers, lambent in the gentle gale : Before it stood the reverend-robed Priest, Late a rude fisherman—an awful head, Veteran in griefs and dangers more than years ; Perchance not finely moulded, but as seen There upright to the illuminating moon, With silver halo rather than white hair, Beauteous exceedingly ! So seem’d to feel The tender eyes then fix’d on him, while slow And quiet, as when he perform’d the rites Of his old village church on Sabbath morn, He set all things in order and began That Litany, which, gathering voice on voice, Made vocal with the names of God and Christ, And the communion of the blest in heaven, Space that had lain long silent of all sound Save the chance greetings of some parting ships, And elemental utterances confused. Oh ! never in high Roman basilie, Prime dome of Art, or elder Lateran, Mother of churches ! never at the shrine That sprang the freshest from pure martyr-blood, Or held within its clasp a nation’s heart By San lago or Saint Denys blest,— Never in that least earthly place of earth, The Tomb where Death himself lay down and died, The Temple of Man’s new Jerusalen— Descended effluence more indeed divine, More total energy of Faith and Hope, And Charity for wrongs unspeakable, Than on that humble scantling of the flock, That midnight congregation of the Sea. Rise not, good Sun ! hold back unwelcome Light That shall but veil the nations in new crime ! Or hide thy coming ; yet some little while Prolong the stupor of exhausted sin, Nor with thy tainted rays disturb this peace, These hard-won fragmentary hours of peace, That soon must sink before the warring world ! He hears them not ; beneath his splendour fades That darkness luminous of Love and Joy ; Quickly its aspect of base daily life The little fleet recovering, plied in haste Its usual labour, lest suspicious foes Might catch suspicion in those empty nets ; But every one there toiling, in his heart Was liken’d to those other Fishermen, Who on their inland waters saw the form Of Jesus, toward them walking firm and free. One moment yet, ere the religious Muse Fold up these earnest memories in her breast, Nor leave unutter’d that one Breton name Which is itself a History—Quiberon ! Was it not heinous ? was it not a shame Which goes beyond its actors, that those men, Simply adventuring to redeem their own— Their ravish’d homes, and shrines, and fathers’ graves Meeting that rampant and adulterous power On its own level of brute force, that they, Crush’d by sheer numbers, should be made exempt From each humane and generous privilege, With which the civil use of later times Has smooth’d the bristling fierceness of old war, And perish armless—one by one laid low By the cold sanction’d executioner ! Nor this alone ; for fervid love may say, That death to them, beneath the foulest hood, Would wear an aureole crown; and martyr palms Have grown as freely from dry felon dust, As e’er from field enrich’d with fame and song. But when they ask’d the only boon brave men Could from inclement conquerors humbly pray— To die as men, and not fall blankly down Into steep death like butcher’d animals, But to receive from consecrated hands Those seals and sureties which the Christian soul Demands as covenants of eternal bliss— They were encounter’d by contemptuous hate, And mockery, bitter as the crown of thorns. Thus pass’d that night, their farewell night to earth, Grave, even sad,—that should have been so full Of faith nigh realized, of young and old, Met hand in hand, indifferent of all time, On the bright shores of immortality ! Till ’mid the throng about their prison-door, In the grey dawn, a rustic voice convey’d Some broken message to a captive’s ear, Low, and by cruel gaolers unperceived ; Which whisper, flitting fast from man to man, Was like a current of electric joy, Awakening smiles, and radiant upward looks, And interchange of symbols spiritual, Leaving unearthly peace. So when soon came The hour of doom, and through the palsied crowd Pass’d the long file without a word or sound, The image, gait, and bearing of each man, In those his bonds, in that his sorry dress, Defiled with dust and blood, perchance his own, A squalid shape of famine and unrest, Was that of some full-sail’d, magnificent ship, That takes the whole expanse of sea and air For its own service, dignifying both As accessories of its single pride. To read the sense and secret of this change, Look where beside the winding path that leads These noble warriors to ignoble death, Rises a knoll of white, grass-tufted sand, Upon whose top, against the brightening sky, Stands a mean peasant, tending with one hand A heifer browsing on that scanty food. To the slow-moving line below he turns An indistinet, almost incurious gaze, While with a long right arm upraised in air He makes strange gestures, source of ribald mirth To some, but unregarded by the most. Yet could a mortal vision penetrate Each motion of that scene, it might perceive How every prisoner, filing by that spot, Bows his bold head, and walks with Mighter steps Onward to rest but once and move no more : For in that peasant stands the yearned-for-Priest, Periling life by this last act of love, And in those gestures are the absolving signs Which send the heroes to their morning graves Happy as parents’ kisses duly speed Day-weary children to their careless beds. Such are memorials, and a hundred more, Which by the pious traveller haply caught, Falling from lowly lips and lofty hearts, Regenerate outward nature, and adorn With blossoms brighter than the Orient rose, And verdure fresher than an English spring, The dull sand-hillocks of the Morbihan. R. M. Milnes .