in a moment the old supreme wisdom sank, and we were not one but three.
"But you, O Soul," said the Will, "how can you be alone when in every
hour you have the company of the invisible, and see the passage of
powers and influence, of demons and angels, creatures of the triple
universe, souls, and the pale flight of the unembodied?"
"I do not know loneliness because of what I see or do not see, but
because of what I feel. When I walk here with you side by side it is as
though I walked along a narrow shore between a fathomless sea and
fathomless night."
The thought of one was the thought of three. I shivered with that great
loneliness. The Body glanced sidelong at the Will, the Will at the Soul.
"It is not good to dwell upon that loneliness," said the last.
"To you, O Body, and to you, O Will, as to me, it is the signal of Him
whom we have lost. Listen, and in the deepest hollow of loneliness we
can hear the voice of the Shepherd."
"I hear nothing," said the Body.
"I hear an echo," said the Will: "I hear an echo; but so, too, I can
hear the authentic voice of the sea in a hollow shell. Authentic! ...
when I know well that the murmur is no eternal voice, no whisper of the
wave made one with pearly silence, but only the sound of my flowing
blood heard idly in the curves of ear and shell?"
"Ah!" ... cried the Body, "it is a lie, that cruel word of science. The
shell must ever murmur of the sea; if not, at least let us dream that it
does. Soon, soon we shall have no dream left. How am I to know that
_all_, that everything, is not but an idle noise in my ears? How am I to
know that the Hope of the Will, and the Voice of the Soul, and the
message of the Word, and the Whisper of the Eternal Spirit, are not one
and all but a mocking echo in that shell which for me is the Shell of
Life, but may be only the cold inhabitation of my dreams?"
"Yet were it not for these echoes," the Soul answered, "life would be
intolerable for you, as for you too, my friend."
The Will smiled scornfully.
"Dreams are no comfort, no solace, no relief from weariness even, if one
knows them to be no more than the spray above the froth of a distempered
mind."
Suddenly one of us began in a low voice a melancholy little song:--
I hear the sea-song of the blood in my heart,
I hear the sea-song of the blood in my ears;
And I am far apart,
And lost in the years.
But when I lie and dream of that which was
Before the first man's shadow flitted on the grass--
I am stricken dumb
With sense of that to come.
Is then this wildering sea-song but a part
Of the old song of the mystery of the years--
Or only the echo of the tired Heart
And of Tears?
But none answered, and so again we walked onward, silent. The wind had
fallen, and in the noon-heat we began to grow weary. It was with relief
that we saw the gleam of water between the branches of a little wood of
birches, which waded towards it through a tide of bracken. Beyond the
birks shimmered a rainbow; a stray cloud had trailed from glen to glen,
and suddenly broken among the tree-tops.
"There goes Yesterday!" cried the Body laughingly--alluding to the
saying that the morning rainbow is the ghost of the day that passed at
dawn. The next moment he broke into a fragment of song:--
Brother and Sister, wanderers they
Out of the Golden Yesterday--
Thro' the dusty Now and the dim To-morrow
Hand-in-hand go Joy and Sorrow.
"Yes, joy and sorrow, O glad Body," exclaimed the Will--"but it is the
joy only that is vain as the rainbow, which has no other message. It
should be called the Bow of Sorrow."
"Not so," said the Soul gently, "or, if so, not as you mean, dear
friend:--
It is not Love that gives the clearest sight:
For out of bitter tears, and tears unshed,
Riseth the Rainbow of Sorrow overhead,
And 'neath the Rainbow is the clearest light.
The Will smiled:--
"I too must have my say, dear poets:--
Where rainbows rise through sunset rains
By shores forlorn of isles forgot,
A solitary Voice complains
'The World is here, the World is not.'
The Voice may be the wind, or sea,
Or spirit of the sundown West:
Or, mayhap, some sweet air set free
From off the Islands of the Blest:
It may be; but I turn my face
To that which still I hold so dear;
And lo, the voices of the days--
'The World is not, the World is here.'
'Tis the same end whichever way
And either way is soon forgot:
The World is all in all, To-day:
'To-morrow all the World is not.'
VII
In the noon-heat we lay, for rest and coolness, by the pool, and on the
shadow-side of a hazel. The water was of so dark a brown that we knew it
was of a great depth, and, indeed, even at the far verge, a heron,
standing motionless, wetted her breast-feathers.
In the mid-pool, where the brown lawns sloped into depths of
purple-blue, we could see a single cloud, invisible otherwise where we
lay. Nearer us, the water mirrored a mountain-ash heavy with ruddy
clusters. That long, feathery foliage, that reddening fruit, hung in a
strange, unfamiliar air; the stranger, that amid the silence of those
phantom branches ever and again flitted furtive shadow-birds.
We had walked for hours, and were now glad to rest. With us we had
brought oaten bread and milk, and were well content.
"It was by a pool such as this," said one of us, after a long interval,
"that dreamers of old called to Connla, and Connla heard. That was the
mortal name of one whose name we know not."
"Call him now," whispered the Body eagerly.
The Soul leaned forward, and stared into the fathomless brown dusk.
"Speak, Connla! Who art thou?"
Clear as a Sabbath-bell across windless pastures we heard a voice:
"I am of those who wait yet a while. I am older than all age, for my
youth is Wisdom; and I am younger than all youth, for I am named
To-morrow."
We heard no more. In vain, together, separately, we sought to break that
silence which divides the mortal moment from hourless time. The Soul
himself could not hear, or see, or even remember, because of that mortal
raiment of the flesh which for a time he had voluntarily taken upon
himself.
"I will tell you a dream that is not all a dream," he said at last,
after we had lain a long while pondering what that voice had uttered,
that voice which showed that the grave held a deeper mystery than
silence.
The Will looked curiously at him.
"Is it a dream wherein we have shared?" he asked slowly.
"That I know not: yet it may well be so. I call my dream 'The Sons of
Joy.' If you or the Body have also dreamed, let each relate the dream."
"Yes," said the Body, "I have dreamed it. But I would call it rather
'The Sons of Delight.'"
"And I," said the Will, "The Sons of Silence."
"Tell it," said the Soul, looking towards the Body.
"It was night," answered the Body at once: "and I was alone in a waste
place. My feet were entangled among briars and thorns, and beside me was
a quagmire. On the briar grew a great staff, and beside it a circlet of
woven thorn. I could see them, in a soft, white light. It must have been
moonlight, for on the other side of the briar I saw, in the moonshine, a
maze of wild roses. They were lovely and fragrant. I would have liked to
take the staff, but it was circled with the thorn-wreath; so I turned to
the moonshine and the wild roses. It was then that I saw a multitude of
tall and lovely figures, men and women, all rose-crowned, and the pale,
beautiful faces of the women with lips like rose-leaves. They were
singing. It was the Song of Delight. I, too, sang. And as I sang, I
wondered, for I thought that the eyes of those about me were heavy with
love and dreams, as though each had been pierced with a shadowy thorn.
But still the song rose, and I knew that the flowers in the grass
breathed to it, and that the vast slow cadence of the stars was its
majestic measure. Then the dawn broke, and I saw all the company, winged
and crested with the seven colours, press together, so that a rainbow
was upbuilded. In the middle space below the rainbow, a bird sang. Then
I knew I was that bird; and as the rainbow vanished, and the dawn grew
grey and chill, I sank to the ground. But it was all bog and swamp. I
knew I should sing no more. But I heard voices saying: 'O happy,
wonderful bird, who has seen all delight, whose song was so rapt, sing,
sing, sing!' But when I could sing no more I was stoned, and lay dead.
"That was my dream."
The Soul sighed.
"It was not thus I dreamed," he murmured; "but thus:--
"I stood, at night, on the verge of the sea, and looked at the maze of
stars. And while looking and dreaming, I heard voices, and, turning,
beheld a multitude of human beings. All were sorrowful; many were heavy
with weariness and despair; all suffered from some grievous ill. Among
them were many who cried continually that they had no thought, or dream,
no wish, but to forget all, and be at rest:
"I called to them, asking whither they were bound?
"'We are journeying to the Grave,' came the sighing answer.
"Then suddenly I saw the Grave. An angel stood at the portals. He was so
beautiful that the radiance of the light upon his brow lit that
shoreless multitude; in every heart a little flame arose. The name of
that divine one was Hope.
"As shadow by shadow slipt silently into the dark road behind the Grave,
I saw the Angel touch for a moment every pale brow.
"I knew at last that I saw beyond the Grave. Infinite ways traversed the
universe, wherein suns and moons and stars hung like fruit. Multitude
within multitude was there.
"Then, again, suddenly I stood where I had been, and saw the Grave
reopen, and from it troop back a myriad of bright and beautiful beings.
I could see that some were souls re-born, some were lovely thoughts,
dreams, hopes, aspirations, influences, powers and mighty spirits too.
And all sang:
"'We are the Sons of Joy.'
"That was my dream."
We were still for a few moments. Then the Will spoke.
"This dream of ours is one thing as the Body's, and another as the
Soul's. It is yet another, as I remember it:--
"On a night of a cold silence, when the breath of the equinox sprayed
the stars into a continuous dazzle, I heard the honk of the wild geese
as they cleft their way wedgewise through the gulfs overhead.
"In the twinkling of an eye I was beyond the last shadow of the last
wing.
"Before me lay a land solemn with auroral light. For a thousand years,
that were as a moment, I wandered therein. Then, far before me, I saw an
immense semi-circle of divine figures, tall, wonderful, clothed with
moonfire, each with uplifted head, as a forest before a wind. To the
right they held the East, and to the left the West.
"'Who are you?' I cried, as I drifted through them like a mist of pale
smoke.
"'We are the Laughing Gods,' they answered.
"Then after I had drifted on beyond the reach of sea or land, to a
frozen solitude of ice, I saw again a vast concourse stretching
crescent-wise from east to west: taller, more wonderful, crowned with
stars, and standing upon dead moons white with perished time.
"'Who are you?' I cried, as I went past them like a drift of pale smoke.
"'We are the Gods who laugh not,' they answered.
"Then when I had drifted beyond the silence of the Pole, and there was
nothing but unhabitable air, and the dancing fires were a flicker in the
pale sheen far behind, I saw again a vast concourse stretching
crescent-wise from east to west. They were taller still; they were more
wonderful still. They were crowned with flaming suns, and their feet
were white with the dust of ancient constellations.
"'Who are you!' I cried, as I went past them like a mist of pale smoke.
"'We are the Gods,' they answered.
"And while I waned into nothingness I felt in my nostrils the salt
smell of the sea, and, listening, I heard the honk of the wild geese
wedging southward.
"That was my dream."
When the Will ceased, nothing was said. We were too deeply moved by
strange thoughts, one and all. Was it always to be thus ... that we
might dream one dream, confusedly real, confusedly unreal, when we three
were one; but that when each dreamed alone, the dream, the vision, was
ever to be distinct in form and significance?
We lay resting for long. After a time we slept. I cannot remember what
then we dreamed, but I know that these three dreams were become one, and
that what the Soul saw and what the Will saw and what the Body saw was a
more near and searching revelation in this new and one dream than in any
of the three separately. I pondered this, trying to remember: but the
deepest dreams are always unrememberable, and leave only a fragrance, a
sound as of a quiet footfall passing into silence, or a cry, or a sense
of something wonderful, unimagined, or of light intolerable: but I could
recall only the memory of a moment ... a moment wherein, in a flash of
lightning, I had seen all, understood all.
I rose ... there was a dazzle on the water, a shimmer on every leaf, a
falling away as of walls of air into the great river of the wind ... and
there were three, not one, each staring dazed at the other, in the ears
of each the bewilderment of the already faint echo of that lost "I."
VIII
Towards sundown we came upon a hamlet, set among the hills. Our hearts
had beat quicker as we drew near, for with the glory of light gathered
above the west the mountains had taken upon them a bloom soft and
wonderful, and we thought that at last we were upon the gates of the
hills towards which we had journeyed so eagerly. But when we reached the
last pines on the ridge we saw the wild doves flying far westward.
Beyond us, under a pale star, dimly visible in a waste of rose, were the
Hills of Dream.
The Soul wished to go to them at once, for now they seemed so near to us
that we might well reach them with the rising of the moon. But the
others were tired, nor did the Hills seem so near to them. So we sat
down by the peat-fire in a shepherd's cottage, and ate of milk and
porridge, and talked with the man about the ways of that district, and
the hills, and how best to reach them. "If you want work," he said,
"you should go away south, where the towns are, an' not to these lonely
hills. They are so barren, that even the goatherds no longer wander
their beasts there."
"It's said they're haunted," added the Body, seeing that the others did
not speak.
"Ay, sure enough. That's well known, master. An' for the matter o' that,
there's a wood down there to the right where for three nights past I
have seen figures and the gleaming of fire. But there isn't a soul in
that wood--no, not a wandering tinker. I took my dogs through it to-day,
an' there wasn't the sign even of a last-year's gypsy. As for the low
bare hill beyond it, not a man, let alone a woman or child, would go
near it in the dark. In the Gaelic it's called Maol De, that is to say,
the Hill of God."
For a long time we sat talking with the shepherd, for he told us of many
things that were strange, and some that were beautiful, and some that
were wild and terrible. One of his own brothers, after an evil life, had
become mad, and even now lived in caves among the higher hills, going
ever on hands and feet, and cursing by day and night because he was made
as one of the wild swine, that know only hunger and rage and savage
sleep. He himself tended lovingly his old father, who was too frail to
work, and often could not sleep at nights because of the pleasant but
wearying noise the fairies made as they met on the dancing-lawns among
the bracken. Our friend had not himself heard the simple people, and in
a whisper confided to us that he thought the old man was a bit mazed,
and that what he heard was only the solitary playing of the Amadan-Dhu,
who, it was known to all, roamed the shadows between the two dusks.
"Keep away from the river in the hollow," he said at another moment,
"for it's there, on a night like this, just before the full moon got up,
that, when I was a boy, I saw the Aonaran. An' to this day, if I saw you
or any one standing by the water, it 'ud be all I could do not to thrust
you into it and drown you: ay, I'd have to throw myself on my face, an'
bite the grass, an' pray till my soul shook the murder out at my throat.
For that's the Aonaran's doing."
Later, he showed us, when we noticed it, a bit of smooth coral that hung
by a coarse leathern thong from his neck.
"Is that an amulet?" one of us asked.
"No: it's my lassie's."
We looked at the man inquiringly.
"The bairn's dead thirty years agone."
In the silence that followed, one of us rose, and went with the shepherd
into the little room behind. When the man came back it was with a
wonderful light in his face. Our comrade did not return ... but when we
glanced sidelong, lo, the Soul was there, as though he had not moved.
Then, of a sudden, we knew what he had done, what he had said, and were
glad.
When we left (the shepherd wanted us to stay the night, but we would
not), the stars had come. The night was full of solemn beauty.
We went down by the wood of which the shepherd had spoken, and came upon
it as the moon rose. But as a path bordered it, we followed that little
winding white gleam, somewhat impatient now to reach those far hills
where each of us believed he would find his heart's desire, or, at the
least, have that vision of absolute Truth, of absolute Beauty, which we
had set out to find.
We had not gone a third of the way when the Body abruptly turned, waving
to us a warning hand. When we stood together silent, motionless, we saw
that we were upon a secret garden. We were among ilex, and beyond were
tall cypresses, like dark flames rising out of the earth, their hither
sides lit with wavering moonfire. Far away the hill-foxes barked.
Somewhere near us in the dusk an owl hooted. The nested wild doves were
silent. Once, the faint churr of a distant fern-owl sent a vibrant
dissonance, that was yet strangely soothing, through the darkness and
the silence.
"Look!" whispered the Body.
We saw, on a mossy slope under seven great cypresses, a man lying on the
ground, asleep. The moonshine reached him as we looked, and revealed a
face of so much beauty and of so great a sorrow that the heart ached.
Nevertheless, there was so infinite a peace there, that, merely gazing
upon it, our lives stood still. The moonbeam slowly passed from that
divine face. I felt my breath rising and falling, like a feather before
the mystery of the wind is come. Then, the further surprised, we saw
that the sleeper was not alone. About him were eleven others, who also
slept; but of these one sat upright, as though the watchman of the dark
hour, slumbering at his post.
While the Body stooped, whispering, we caught sight of the white face of
yet another, behind the great bole of a tree. This man, the twelfth of
that company which was gathered about the sleeper in its midst, stared,
with uplifted hand. In his other hand, and lowered to the ground, was a
torch. He stared upon the Sleeper.
Slowly I moved forward. But whether in so doing, or by so doing, we
broke some subtle spell, which had again made us as one, I know not.
Suddenly three stood in that solitary place, with none beside us,
neither sleeping nor watching, neither quick nor dead. Far off the
hill-foxes barked. Among the cypress boughs an owl hooted, and was
still.
"Have we dreamed?" each asked the other. Then the Body told what he had
seen, and what heard; and it was much as is written here, only that the
sleepers seemed to him worn and poor men, ill-clad, weary, and that
behind the white face of the twelfth, who hid behind a tree, was a
company of evil men with savage faces, and fierce eyes, and drawn
swords.
"I have seen nothing of all this," said the Will harshly, "but only a
fire drowning in its own ashes, round which a maze of leaves circled
this way and that, blown by idle winds."
The Soul looked at the speaker. He sighed. "Though God were to sow
living fires about you, O Will," he said, "you would not believe."
The Will answered dully: "I have but one dream, one hope, and that is to
believe. Do not mock me." The Soul leaned and kissed him lovingly on the
brow.
"Look," he said; "what I saw was this: I beheld, asleep, the Divine
Love; not sleeping, as mortals sleep, but in a holy quiet, brooding upon
infinite peace, and in commune with the Eternal Joy. Around him were the
Nine Angels, the _Crois nan Aingeal_ of our prayers, and two
Seraphs--the Eleven Powers and Dominions of the World. And One stared
upon them, and upon Him, out of the dark wood, with a face white with
despair, that great and terrible Lord of Shadow whom some call Death,
and some Evil, and some Fear, and some the Unknown God. Behind him was a
throng of demons and demoniac creatures: and all died continually. And
the wood itself--it was an infinite forest; a forest of human souls
awaiting God."
The Will listened, with eyes strangely ashine. Suddenly he fell upon his
knees, and prayed. We saw tears falling from his eyes.
"I am blind and deaf," he whispered in the ear of the Body, as he rose;
"but, lest I forget, tell me where I am, in what place we are."
"It is a garden called Gethsemane," answered the other--though I know
not how he knew--I--we--as we walked onward in silence through the dusk
of moon and star, and saw the gossamer-webs whiten as they became
myriad, and hang heavy with the pale glister of the dews of dawn.
IX
The morning twilight wavered, and it was as though an incalculable host
of grey doves fled upward and spread earthward before a wind with
pinions of rose: then the dappled dove-grey vapour faded, and the rose
hung like the reflection of crimson fire, and dark isles of ruby and
straits of amethyst and pale gold and saffron and April-green came into
being: and the new day was come.
We stood silent. There is a beauty too great. We moved slowly round by
the low bare hill beyond the wood. No one was there, but on the summit
stood three crosses; one, midway, so great that it threw a shadow from
the brow of the East to the feet of the West.
The Soul stopped. He seemed as one rapt. We looked upon him with awe,
for his face shone as though from a light within. "Listen," he
whispered, "I hear the singing of the Sons of Joy. Farewell: I shall
come again."
We were alone, we two. Silently we walked onward. The sunrays slid
through the grass, birds sang, the young world that is so old smiled:
but we had no heed for this. In that new solitude each almost hated the
other. At noon a new grief, a new terror, came to us. We were upon a
ridge, looking westward. There were no hills anywhere.
Doubtless the Soul had gone that way which led to them. For us ... they
were no longer there.
"Let us turn and go home," said the Body wearily.
The Will stood and thought.
"Let us go home," he said.
With that he turned, and walked hour after hour. It was by a road
unknown to us, for, not noting where we went, we had traversed a path
that led us wide of that by which we had come. At least we saw nothing
of it. Nor, at dusk, would the Will go further, nor agree even to seek
for a path that might lead to the garden called Gethsemane.
"We are far from it," he said, "if indeed there be any such place. It
was a dream, and I am weary of all dreams. When we are home again, O
Body, we will dream no more."
The Body was silent, then abruptly laughed. His comrade looked at him
curiously.
"Why do you laugh?"
"Did you not say there would be no more tears? And of that I am glad."
"You did not laugh gladly. But what I said was that there shall be no
more dreams for us, that we will dream no more."
"It is the same thing. We have tears because we dream. If we hope no
more, we dream no more: if we dream no more, we weep no more. And I
laughed because of this: that if we weep no more we can live as we like,
without thought of an impossible to-morrow, and with little thought even
for to-day."
For a time we walked in brooding thought, but slowly, because of the
gathering dark. Neither spoke, until the Body suddenly stood still,
throwing up his arms.
"Oh, what a fool I have been! What a fool I have been!"
The Will made no reply. He stared before him into the darkness.
We had meant to rest in the haven of the great oaks, but a thin rain had
begun, and we shivered with the chill. The thought came to us to turn
and find our way back to the house of the shepherd, hopeless as the
quest might prove, for we were more and more bewildered as to where we
were, or even as to the direction in which we moved, being without pilot
of moon or star, and having already followed devious ways. But while we
were hesitating, we saw a light. The red flame shone steadily through
the rainy gloom, so we knew that it was no lantern borne by a
fellow-wayfarer. In a brief while we came upon it, and saw that it was
from a red lamp burning midway in a forest chapel.