IT was in the month of June Hanrahan was on the road near Sligo, but he
did not go into the town, but turned towards Beinn Bulben; for there
were thoughts of the old times coming upon him, and he had no mind to
meet with common men. And as he walked he was singing to himself a song
that had come to him one time in his dreams:
O Death’s old bony finger
Will never find us there
In the high hollow townland
Where love’s to give and to spare;
Where boughs have fruit and blossom
At all times of the year;
Where rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a gold and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.
The little fox he murmured,
‘O what of the world’s bane?’
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
‘O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world’s bane.’
When their hearts are so high
That they would come to blows,
They unhook their heavy swords
From golden and silver boughs:
But all that are killed in battle
Awaken to life again:
It is lucky that their story
Is not known among men.
For O, the strong farmers
That would let the spade lie,
Their hearts would be like a cup
That somebody had drunk dry.
Michael will unhook his trumpet
From a bough overhead,
And blow a little noise
When the supper has been spread.
Gabriel will come from the water
With a fish tail, and talk
Of wonders that have happened
On wet roads where men walk,
And lift up an old horn
Of hammered silver, and drink
Till he has fallen asleep
Upon the starry brink.
Hanrahan had begun to climb the mountain then, and he gave over
singing, for it was a long climb for him, and every now and again he
had to sit down and to rest for a while. And one time he was resting he
took notice of a wild briar bush, with blossoms on it, that was growing
beside a rath, and it brought to mind the wild roses he used to bring
to Mary Lavelle, and to no woman after her. And he tore off a little
branch of the bush, that had buds on it and open blossoms, and he went
on with his song:
The little fox he murmured,
‘O what of the world’s bane?’
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
‘O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world’s bane.’
And he went on climbing the hill, and left the rath, and there came
to his mind some of the old poems that told of lovers, good and bad,
and of some that were awakened from the sleep of the grave itself by
the strength of one another’s love, and brought away to a life in some
shadowy place, where they are waiting for the judgment and banished
from the face of God.
And at last, at the fall of day, he came to the Steep Gap of the
Strangers, and there he laid himself down along a ridge of rock, and
looked into the valley, that was full of grey mist spreading from
mountain to mountain.
And it seemed to him as he looked that the mist changed to shapes of
shadowy men and women, and his heart began to beat with the fear and
the joy of the sight. And his hands, that were always restless, began
to pluck off the leaves of the roses on the little branch, and he
watched them as they went floating down into the valley in a little
fluttering troop.
Suddenly he heard a faint music, a music that had more laughter in it
and more crying than all the music of this world. And his heart rose
when he heard that, and he began to laugh out loud, for he knew that
music was made by some who had a beauty and a greatness beyond the
people of this world. And it seemed to him that the little soft rose
leaves as they went fluttering down into the valley began to change
their shape till they looked like a troop of men and women far off in
the mist, with the colour of the roses on them. And then that colour
changed to many colours, and what he saw was a long line of tall
beautiful young men, and of queen-women, that were not going from
him but coming towards him and past him, and their faces were full of
tenderness for all their proud looks, and were very pale and worn, as
if they were seeking and ever seeking for high sorrowful things. And
shadowy arms were stretched out of the mist as if to take hold of them,
but could not touch them, for the quiet that was about them could not
be broken. And before them and beyond them, but at a distance as if in
reverence, there were other shapes, sinking and rising and coming and
going, and Hanrahan knew them by their whirling flight to be the Sidhe,
the ancient defeated gods; and the shadowy arms did not rise to take
hold of them, for they were of those that can neither sin nor obey. And
they all lessened then in the distance, and they seemed to be going
towards the white door that is in the side of the mountain.
The mist spread out before him now like a deserted sea washing the
mountains with long grey waves, but while he was looking at it, it
began to fill again with a flowing broken witless life that was a part
of itself, and arms and pale heads covered with tossing hair appeared
in the greyness. It rose higher and higher till it was level with the
edge of the steep rock, and then the shapes grew to be solid, and a
new procession half lost in mist passed very slowly with uneven steps,
and in the midst of each shadow there was something shining in the
starlight. They came nearer and nearer, and Hanrahan saw that they also
were lovers, and that they had heart-shaped mirrors instead of hearts,
and they were looking and ever looking on their own faces in one
another’s mirrors. They passed on, sinking downward as they passed, and
other shapes rose in their place, and these did not keep side by side,
but followed after one another, holding out wild beckoning arms, and he
saw that those who were followed were women, and as to their heads they
were beyond all beauty, but as to their bodies they were but shadows
without life, and their long hair was moving and trembling about them,
as if it lived with some terrible life of its own. And then the mist
rose of a sudden and hid them, and then a light gust of wind blew them
away towards the north-east, and covered Hanrahan at the same time with
a white wing of cloud.
He stood up trembling and was going to turn away from the valley,
when he saw two dark and half-hidden forms standing as if in the air
just beyond the rock, and one of them that had the sorrowful eyes of
a beggar said to him in a woman’s voice, ‘Speak to me, for no one in
this world or any other world has spoken to me for seven hundred years.’
‘Tell me who are those that have passed by,’ said Hanrahan.
‘Those that passed first,’ the woman said, ‘are the lovers that had the
greatest name in the old times, Blanad and Deirdre and Grania and their
dear comrades, and a great many that are not so well known but are as
well loved. And because it was not only the blossom of youth they were
looking for in one another, but the beauty that is as lasting as the
night and the stars, the night and the stars hold them for ever from
the warring and the perishing, in spite of the wars and the bitterness
their love brought into the world. And those that came next,’ she said,
‘and that still breathe the sweet air and have the mirrors in their
hearts, are not put in songs by the poets, because they sought only to
triumph one over the other, and so to prove their strength and beauty,
and out of this they made a kind of love. And as to the women with
shadow-bodies, they desired neither to triumph nor to love but only
to be loved, and there is no blood in their hearts or in their bodies
until it flows through them from a kiss, and their life is but for a
moment. All these are unhappy, but I am the unhappiest of all, for
I am Dervadilla, and this is Dermot, and it was our sin brought the
Norman into Ireland. And the curses of all the generations are upon
us, and none are punished as we are punished. It was but the blossom
of the man and of the woman we loved in one another, the dying beauty
of the dust and not the everlasting beauty. When we died there was no
lasting unbreakable quiet about us, and the bitterness of the battles
we brought into Ireland turned to our own punishment. We go wandering
together for ever, but Dermot that was my lover sees me always as a
body that has been a long time in the ground, and I know that is the
way he sees me. Ask me more, ask me more, for all the years have left
their wisdom in my heart, and no one has listened to me for seven
hundred years.’
A great terror had fallen upon Hanrahan, and lifting his arms above his
head he screamed out loud three times, and the cattle in the valley
lifted their heads and lowed, and the birds in the wood at the edge
of the mountain awaked out of their sleep and fluttered through the
trembling leaves. But a little below the edge of the rock, the troop of
rose leaves still fluttered in the air, for the gateway of Eternity had
opened and shut again in one beat of the heart.