“Go forth thyself at dawn, and say
’This is Christ’s holy natal morn,
My king is He from forth this day
When He to save mankind was born’: 

“Go forth and seek a lonely place
Where a great river fills the wild;
There bide, and let thy strength be grace,
And wait the Coming of a Child.

“A wondrous thing shall then befall: 
And when thou seek’st if it be true,
Green leaves along thy staff shall crawl,
With, flowers of every lovely hue.”

The monk’s face whitened, like sea-foam: 
Seaward he stared, and sighed “I go—­
Farewell—­my Lord Christ calls me home!”
Nial stooped and saw death’s final throe.

An hour before the dawn he rose
And sought out Modred, brooding, dumb;
“O King,” he said, “my bond I close,
King Christ I seek:  the Cross is come!”

Swift as a stag’s leap from a height
King Modred drew his dreadful sword: 
Then as a snow-wraith, silent, white,
He stared and passed without a word.

Before the flush of dawn was red
A druid came to Nial the Great: 
“The doom of death hath Modred said,
Yet fears this Christ’s mysterious hate: 

“So get you hence, you giant-thewed man: 
Go your own way:  come not again: 
No more are you of Modred’s clan: 
Go now, forthwith, lest you be slain.”

Nial went forth with gladsome face;
No more of Modred’s clan he was: 
“Now, now,” he cried, “Christ’s trail I’ll trace,
And nowhere turn, and nowhere pause.”

He laughed to think how Modred feared
The wrath of Christ, the monk’s white king: 
“A greater than Modred hath appeared,
To Him my sword and strength I bring.”

All day, all night, he walked afar: 
He saw the moon rise white and still: 
The evening and the morning star: 
The sunrise burn upon the hill.

He heard the moaning of the seas,
The vast sigh of the sunswept plain,
The myriad surge of forest-trees;
Saw dusk and night return again.

At falling of the dusk he stood
Upon a wild and desert land: 
Dark fruit he gathered for his food,
Drank water from his hollowed hand,

Cut from an ash a mighty bough
And trimmed and shaped it to the half: 
“Safe in the desert am I now,
With sword,” he said, “and with this staff.”

The stars came out:  Arcturus hung
His ice-blue fire far down the sky: 
The Great Bear through the darkness swung: 
The Seven Watchers rose on high.

A great moon flooded all the west. 
Silence came out of earth and sea
And lay upon the husht world’s breast,
And breathed mysteriously.

Three hours Nial walked, three hours and more: 
Then halted when beyond the plain
He stood upon that river’s shore
The dying monk had bid him gain.

A little house he saw:  clay-wrought,
Of wattle woven through and through: 
Then, all his weariness forgot,
The joy of drowning-sleep he knew.