"Do not heed these forms!" cried Niam. Compare with this from

another source: "Flee from the Hall of Learning, it is dangerous

in its perfidious beauty. .... Beware, lest dazzled by illusive

radiance thy Soul should linger and be caught in its deceptive light.

.... It shines from the jewel of the Great Ensnarer." There are

centres in man corresponding to these appearances. They give vision

and entrance into a red and dreadful world, where unappeasable

desire smites the soul--a dangerous clairvoyence. But in the

sphere beyond their power has to be conquered, and here Oisin wars

with the giant Fomor. De Dannan and Romorian passed from Eire

wrestle still in the invisible world, say the legends. We, too--

would-be mystics--are met on the threshold of diviner spheres by

terrible forms embodying the sins of a living past when we misused

our spiritual powers in old Atlantean days. These forms must be

conquered and so Oisin battles with Fomor and releases the power--

a princess in the story. This fight with the demon must be fought

by everyone who would enter the land of the Gods, whether in

conscious occult adventure or half-consciously after death, when

the strange alchemist Nature separates the subtile from the gross

in the soul in this region which Oisin passes through. Tir-na-noge,

the land of Niam, is that region the soul lives in when its grosser

energies and desires have been subdued, dominated and brought under

the control of light; where the Ray of Beauty kindles and illuminates

every form which the imagination conceives, and where every form

tends to its archetype. It is a real region which has been approached

and described by the poets and sages who, at all times, have

endeavoured to express something of the higher realities. It is

not distant, but exists in earth as the soul within the body, and

may be perceived through and along with the surface forms. In a

sense it corresponds with the Tibetan Devachan, and in this region

Oisin lives for a hundred years, until desire to see Eire once more

arises and he parts from Niam. Nor the details of his return, the

drowsy land in which he slumbers; how he fell off the white horse

and became an old man with the weariness of his hundreds of years

upon him--I must refer the reader to the legends. He will read

not alone of Oisin, but of many an old hero, who, hailed by the

faery (divine) voice, went away to live in the heart of green hills

(to be initiated) or to these strange worlds.

Dear children of Eire, not alone to the past but to today belong

such destinies. For if we will we can enter the enchanted land.

The Golden Age is all about us, and heroic forms and imperishable

love. In that mystic light rolled round our hills and valleys hang

deed and memories which yet live and inspire. The Gods have not

deserted us. Hearing our call they will return. A new cycle is

dawning and the sweetness of the morning twilight is in the air.

We can breathe it if we will but awaken from our slumber.

II.

In the recently published Story of Early Gaelic Literature, attention

is directed to the curious eastern and pantheistic character of some

archaic verse. Critics are for ever trying to show how some one

particular antique race was the first begetter of religion and mystic

symbolism. Perplexed by the identity between the myths and traditions

of different countries, they look now here, now there, for the original.

But it was not in any land but out of the Christ-Soul of the universe

that true wisdom at all times was begotten. Some ignorant peasant,

some Jacob Boehme, is pure and aspires, and lo! the God stirs within

him and he knows the things that were taught in elder days and by

unknown people. Our own land, long ago, had its Initiates in whom

the eye of the seer was open. This eye, concealed in the hollow

of the brain, is the straight gate and the narrow way through which

alone the mortal may pass and behold the immortal. It is now

closed in most men. Materialism, sensuality and dogmatic belief

have so taken the crown and sceptre from their souls that they enter

the golden world no more knowingly--they are outcast of Eden. But

the Tuatha De Dannans were more than seers or visionaries. They

were magicians--God and man in one. Not alone their thought went

out into the vast, but the Power went along with it. This mystic

Power is called the Serpentine Fire. It is spiritual, electric,

creative. It develops spirally in the ascetic, mounting from centre

to centre, from the navel to the heart;* [* "He that believeth

on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters. This

spake he of the Spirit."--John, vii, 38] from thence it rises to

the head. He is then no more a man but a God; his vision embraces

infinitude.

The action of this Power was symbolized in many ways, notably by

the passage of the sun through the zodiacal signs * (centres in

the psychic body) [* "The twelve signs of the Zodiac are hidden

in his body."---Secret Doctrine, II, 619] A stone serpent was

found a little while ago in Ireland marked with twelve divisions.

The archaic verses alluded to have the same meaning:

"I am the point of the lance of battle. [The spinal cord, the

Sushumna nadi of Indian Psychology.]

I am the God who creates in the head of man the fire of the thought.

Who is it throws light into the meeting on the mountain? [The

meeting of the mortal and the immortal on Mount Meru, the

pineal gland.]

Who announces the ages of the moon? [The activity of the inner

astral man.]

Who teaches the place where courses the sun?" [Spirit.]

The Serpentine Power is the couch of the sun, the casket of spirit.

Hence the Druids or Magi who had mastered this power were called

Serpents. Though St. Patrick is said to have driven the serpents

out of Ireland, traces still remain of the serpent wisdom. Lest

the interpretation given should seem arbitrary I will trace further

explicit references to the third eye. Diarmuid, the hero and

darling of so many story-tellers, whose flight with Grania forms

one of the most mystic episodes in Celtic romance, is described

as having a spot in the centre of his forehead which fascinated

whoever gazed. He is called the "Son of the Monarch of Light."

He is the Initiate, the twice-born. This divine parentage has

the sense in which the words were spoken. "Marvel not that I said

unto thee, ye must be born again." In the same sense a Druid is

described as "full of his God." From the mystic Father descends

the Ray, the Child of Light. It is born in man as mind, not

reasoning: earthly not sensual, but as the heaven-aspiring,

thinking mind. In itself it is of the nature of fire. The man

who knows it becomes filled with light, aye, he moves about in

light within himself.

The following description of a giant, taken from the story of

Diarmuid, refers to still another aspect of our occult nature.

"He has, but one eye only in the fair middle of his black forehead.

.... He is, moreover, so skilled in magic that fire could not burn

him, water could not drown him, and weapons would not wound him.

...... He is fated not to die until there be struck upon him three

blows of the iron club he has. He sleeps in the top of that Quicken

tree by night, and he remains at its foot by day to watch it. ....

The berries of the tree have the virtues of the trees of faeryland."

The Quicken tree is the network of nerves in the magnetic astral body.

Readers of the Upanishads will remember the description of the arteries,

thin as a hair split a thousand times, which proceed from the heart,

and in which the Ego rests during deep sleep. It has just the same

significance in the legend. The meaning will be still better

understood by a comparison of the youthful Finn in his encounter

with a similar one-eye Titan. There is a most interesting version

of this in Curtin's Irish Myths and Folk-Tales. Too long to quote

in its entirety, the story runs as follows. Finn meets a giant

who carries a salmon in his hand. This Titan has "but one eye as

large as the sun in the heavens." He gives the fish to Finn to

cook. The moment the giant closed his eye he began to breathe

heavily. "Every time he drew breath he dragged Finn, the spit,

the salmon, and all the goats to his mouth, and every time drove

a breath out of himself he threw them back to the places they were

in before." While Finn is cooking the salmon he burns it, and in

trying to hide the blister he burns his thumb. To ease the pain

he put his thumb between his teeth, and chewed it through to the

bone and marrow. He then received the knowledge of all things.

He was drawn up the next minute to the giant's eye, and plunged

the hot spit (a bar of red-hot iron, says another account) into

the eye of the giant. He passes the infuriate giant at the door

of the cave something after the fashion of Ulysses, by bringing

the flocks out and himself escaping under the fleece of the largest

goat or ram.

The meaning of this story, with all its quaint imagery, is not

difficult. It is an allegory describing the loss of the third eye.

The cave is the body. The fish is a phallic symbol, and the cooking

of it refers to the fall of the early ethereal races into generation

and eventually into gross sensuality. The synthetic action of the

highest spiritual faculty, in which all the powers of man are present,

is shown by the manner in which everything in the cave is dragged

up to the giant's head. When Finn destroys the eye by plunging

into it a bar of red-hot iron, it simply means that the currents

started in the generative organs rose up through the spinal cord

to the brain, and, acting upon the pineal gland, atrophied or

petrified it. The principle of desire is literally the spirit of

the metal iron, and a clairvoyent could see these red fires mounting

up by the way of the spinal canal to the brain and there smothering

any higher feelings. The escape of Finn under the fleece of the

ram means that, having destroyed the spiritual eye, he could only

use the organ of psychic clairvoyance, which is symbolized here,

as in the mysticism of other countries, by the ram.

This symbolism, so grotesque and unmeaning today, was once perfectly

lucid and was justified in its application. A clairvoyant could

see in the aura of man around every centre the glow, colour and

form which gave rise to the antique symbol. One of the Gods is

described as "surrounded by a rainbow and fiery dews." Cuchullin,

whose hair, dark (blue?) close to the skin, red beyond, and ending

in brilliant gold, makes Professor Rhys elaborate him into a solar

myth, is an adept who has assimilated the substance of the three

worlds, the physical, the psychic and the heavenworld; therefore

his hair (aura) shows the three colours. He has the sevenfold

vision also, indicated by the seven pupils in his eyes. Volumes

of unutterably dreary research, full of a false learning, have

been written about these legends. Some try to show that much of

the imagery arose from observation of the heavenly bodies and the

procession of the seasons. But who of the old bards would have

described nature other than as she is? The morning notes of Celtic

song breathe the freshness of spring and are full of joy in nature.

They could communicate this much better than most of their critics

could do. It is only the world within which could not be rendered

otherwise than by myth and symbol. We do not need scholarship so

much as a little imagination to interpret them. We shall understand

the divine initiators of our race by believing in our own divinity.

As we nourish the mystic fire, we shall find many things of the

early world, which now seem grotesque and unlovely to our eyes,

growing full of shadowy and magnificent suggestion. Things that

were distant and strange, things abhorrent, the blazing dragons,

winged serpents and oceans of fire which affrighted us, are seen

as the portals through which the imagination enters a more beautiful,

radiant world. The powers we dared not raise our eyes to--heroes,

dread deities and awful kings--grow as brothers and gay children

around the spirit in its resurrection and ascension. For there

is no pathway in the universe which does not pass through man,

and no life which is not brother to our life.

--March-April, 1895

Review: "Lyrics" by R.H. Fitzpatrick [London: W. Stewart and Co.]

While one race sinks into night another renews its dawn. The Celtic

Twilight is the morning-time and the singing of birds is prophetic

of the new day. We have had to welcome of late years one sweet

singer after another, and now comes a volume of lyrics which has

that transcendental note which is peculiar to our younger writers.

It is full of the mystery and commingling of the human and the

divine soul:

"Hail, thou living spirit!

Whose deep organ blown

By lips that more inherit

Than all music known;

Art is but the echo of thy mysterious tone."

These lyrics, I imagine, have been wrought in solitary wanderings,

in which the forms and shows of things and human hopes and fears

have been brooded upon until the intensity of contemplation has

allied them with that soul of Nature in which the poet finds the

fulfilment of all dreams and ideals. And in this refining back

to an Over-Soul there is no suggestion of the student of academic

philosophy, no over-wrought intellectualism. Such references

arise naturally out of his thought and illuminate it. One can

imagine how such lyrics were engendered:

"I stood and twirled a feathered stalk,

Or drank the clover's honey sap,

Happiest without talk.

"The summer tidal waves of night

Slowly in silence rippled in:

They steeped the feet of blazing light,

And hushed day's harsher din."

This aloofness from conflict, it if has hindered him from fully

accepting and justifying life, the highest wisdom of the poet, has

still its compensations. He has felt the manifold meaning of the

voices through whose unconsciousness Nature speaks, the songs of

birds, the aerial romance and intermingling of light and shadow,

and has vision of the true proportion of things in that conflict

he has turned his back on:

"All things sip,

And sip at life; but Time for ever drains

The ever-filing cup in rivalship,

And wipes the generations from his lip,

While Art looks down from his serene domains."

--June 15, 1895

--"YES, AND HOPE."

They bring none to his or to her terminus or to be content and full,

Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars,

to learn one of the meanings. To launch off with absolute faith,

to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.

--Whitman

Here is inspiration--the voice of the soul. And we, who professed

to bring such wisdom, what have we to say? Have we uttered with

equal confidence such hopes, or with such daring and amplitude of

illustration? Let us confess we have not. There are one or two

exceptions which will occur to everyone. Now, as we adventure afresh,

let us see what it is has brought despondency and failure in our work

upon us in the past. I think it is because we have been saying

things we have never realized; we have been repeating without

imagination the words of those few leaders. We have lowered their

heroic tone because we thought we were speaking to a fallen people

who could not respond to our highest. But it was not the way, it

was not the way. It is not with the dust we have brotherhood, but

with the ancient spirit it clouds over. To this spirit we must

speak heart to heart as we know how. I would not willingly recognize

aught in anyone but the divine. Often indeed the form or surface

far removed from beauty makes us falter, and we speak to that form

and so the soul is not stirred; it will not respond. But an equal

temper arouses it. To whoever hails in it the lover, the hero,

the magician, it will answer, but not to him who accosts it as Mr.

So-and-So. Every word which really inspires is spoken as if the

Golden Age had never passed. The great teachers ignore the personal

identity and speak to the eternal pilgrim. Do we not treasure

most their words which remind us of our divine origin? So we must

in our turn speak. How often do we not long to break through the

veils which divide us from some one, but custom, convention, or a

fear of being misunderstood prevent us, and so the moment departs

whose heat might have burned through every barrier. Out with it--

out with it, the hidden heart, the love that is voiceless, the

secret tender germ of an infinite forgiveness. That speaks to

the heart. That pierces through many a vesture of the Soul.

Our companion struggles in some labyrinth of passion. We help him,

we think with ethics, with the moralities. Ah, very well they are;

well to know and to keep, but wherefore? For their own sake? No,

but that the King may arise in his beauty. We write that in letters,

in books, but to the face of the fallen who brings back remembrance?

Who calls him by his secret name? Let a man but feel for that is

his battle, for that his cyclic labor, and a warrior who is invincible

fights for him and he draws upon divine powers. Let us but get that

way of looking at things which we call imaginative, and how everything

alters. For our attitude to man and to nature, expressed or not,

has something of the effect of ritual, of evocation. As our

aspiration so is our inspiration. We believe in life universal,

in a brotherhood which links the elements to man, and makes the

glow-worm feel far off something of the rapture of the seraph hosts.

Then we go out into the living world, and what influences pour

through us! We are "at league with the stones of the field." The

winds of the world blow radiantly upon us as in the early time.

We feel wrapt about with love, with an infinite tenderness that

caresses us. Alone in our rooms as we ponder, what sudden abysses

of light open within us! The Gods are so much nearer than we dreamed.

We rise up intoxicated with the thought, and reel out seeking an

equal companionship under the great night and the stars.

Let us get near to realities. We read too much. We think of that

which is "the goal, the Comforter, the Lord, the Witness, the resting-

place, the asylum and the Friend." Is it by any of these dear and

familiar names? Alas, our souls are becoming mere bundles of theories.

We follow the trail of the Monad, but often it is only in the pages

of The Secret Doctrine. And we talk much of Atma, Buddhi, and Manas.

Could we not speak of them in our own tongue and the language of

today will be as sacred as any of the past. No wonder that the

Manasa do not incarnate. We cannot say we do pay reverence to

these awful powers. We repulse the living truth by our doubts and

reasonings. We would compel the Gods to fall in with our philosophy

rather than trust in the heavenly guidance. We make diagrams of them.

Ah, to think of it, those dread deities, the divine Fires, to be

so enslaved! We have not comprehended the meaning of the voice

which cried, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord," or this, "Lift up

your heads O y gates. Be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and

the King of Glory shall come in." Nothing that we read is useful

unless it calls up living things in the soul. To read a mystic

book truly is to invoke the powers. If they do not rise up plumed

and radiant, the apparitions of spiritual things, then is our labor

barren. We only encumber the mind with useless symbols. They

knew better ways long ago. "Master of the Green-waving Planisphere,

..... Lord of the Azure Expanse, .... it is thus we invoke," cried

the magicians of old.

And us, let us invoke them with joy, let us call upon them with love,

the Light we hail, or the Divine Darkness we worship with silent

breath, hymning it in our hearts with quietude and more enraptured

awe. That silence cries aloud to the Gods. Then they will approach

us. Then we may learn that speech of many colors, for they will

not speak in our mortal tongue; they will not answer to the names

of men. Their names are rainbow glories. Yet these are mysteries

and they cannot be reasoned out or argued over. We cannot speak

truly of them from report, or description, or from what another

has written. A relation to the thing in itself alone is our warrant,

and this means we must set aside our intellectual self-sufficiency

and await guidance. It will surely come to those who wait in trust,

a glow, a heat in the heart announcing the awakening of the Fire.

And, as it blows with its mystic breath into the brain, there is

a hurtling of visions, a brilliance of lights, a sound as of great

waters vibrant and musical in their flowing, and murmurs from a

single yet multitudinous being. In such a mood, when the far

becomes near, the strange familiar, and the infinite possible, he

wrote from whose words we get the inspiration:

"To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless

rings and never be quiet again."

Such a faith and such an unrest be ours: faith which is mistrust

of the visible; unrest which is full of a hidden surety and radiance.

We, when we fall into pleasant places, rest and dream our strength

away. Before every enterprise and adventure of the soul we calculate

in fear our power to do. But remember, "Oh, disciple, in thy work

for thy brother thou has many allies; in the winds, in the air,

in all the voices of the silent shore." These are the far-wandered

powers of our own nature and they turn again home at our need.

We came out of the Great Mother-Life for the purposes of soul.

Are her darlings forgotten where they darkly wander and strive?

Never. Are not the lives of all her heroes proof? Though they

seem to stand alone the eternal Mother keeps watch on them, and

voices far away and unknown to them before arise in passionate

defence, and hearts beat warm to help them. Aye, if we could look

within we would see vast nature stirred on their behalf, and

institutions shaken, until the truth they fight for triumphs, and

they pass, and a wake of glory ever widening behind them trails

down the ocean of the years.

Thus the warrior within us works, or, if we choose to phrase it so,

it is the action of the spiritual will. Shall we not, then, trust

in it and face the unknown defiant and fearless of its dangers.

Though we seem to go alone to the high, the lonely, the pure, we

need not despair. Let no one bring to this task the mood of the

martyr or of one who thinks he sacrifices something. Yet let all

who will come. Let them enter the path, "Yes, and hope," facing

all things in life and death with a mood at once gay and reverent,

as beseems those who are immortal--who are children today, but

whose hands tomorrow may grasp the sceptre, sitting down with the

Gods as equal and companions.

--August 1895

Content

Who are exiles? as for me

Where beneath the diamond dome

Lies the light on hill or tree

There my palace is and home.

We are outcasts from Deity; therefore we defame the place of our

exile. But who is there may set apart his destiny from the earth

which bore him? I am one of those who would bring back the old

reverence for the Mother, the magic, the love. I think, metaphysician,

you have gone astray. You would seek within yourself for the fountain

of life. Yes, there is the true, the only light. But do not dream

it will lead you further away from the earth, but rather deeper into

its heart. By it you are nourished with those living waters you

would drink. You are yet in the womb and unborn, and the Mother

breathes for thee the diviner airs. Dart out thy furthest ray of

thought to the original, and yet thou has not found a new path of

thine own. Thy ray is still enclosed in the parent ray, and only

on the sidereal streams are you borne to the freedom of the deep,

to the sacred stars whose distance maddens, and to the lonely Light

of Lights.

Let us, therefore, accept the conditions and address ourselves with

wonder, with awe, with love, as we well may, to that being in whom

we move. I abate no jot of those vaster hopes, yet I would pursue

that ardent aspiration, content as to here and today. I do not

believe in a nature red with tooth and claw. If indeed she appears

so terrible to any it is because they themselves have armed her.

Again, behind the anger of the Gods there is a love. Are the rocks

barren? Lay thy brow against them and learn what memories they keep.

Is the brown earth unbeautiful? Yet lie on the breast of the Mother

and thou shalt be aureoled with the dews of faery. The earth is

the entrance to the Halls of Twilight. What emanations are those

that make radiant the dark woods of pine! Round every leaf and

tree and over all the mountains wave the fiery tresses of that

hidden sun which is the soul of the earth and parent of they soul.

But we think of these things no longer. Like the prodigal we have

wandered far from our home, but no more return. We idly pass or

wait as strangers in the halls our spirit built.

Sad or fain no more to live?

I have pressed the lips of pain:

With the kisses lovers give

Ransomed ancient powers again.

I would raise this shrinking soul to a more universal acceptance.

What! does it aspire to the All, and yet deny by its revolt and

inner protest the justice of Law. From sorrow we shall take no

less and no more than from our joys. For if the one reveals to

the soul the mode by which the power overflows and fills it here,

the other indicates to it the unalterable will which checks excess

and leads it on to true proportion and its own ancestral ideal.

Yet men seem for ever to fly from their destiny of inevitable beauty;

because of delay the power invites and lures no longer but goes out

into the highways with a hand of iron. We look back cheerfully

enough upon those old trials out of which we have passed; but we

have gleaned only an aftermath of wisdom and missed the full harvest

if the will has not risen royally at the moment in unison with the

will of the Immortal, even though it comes rolled round with terror

and suffering and strikes at the heart of clay.

Through all these things, in doubt, despair, poverty, sick feeble

or baffled, we have yet to learn reliance. "I will not leave thee

or forsake thee," are the words of the most ancient spirit to the

spark wandering in the immensity of its own being. This high

courage brings with it a vision. It sees the true intent in all

circumstance out of which its own emerges to meet it. Before it

the blackness melts into forms of beauty, and back of all illusions

is seen the old enchanter tenderly smiling, the dark, hidden Father

enveloping his children.

All things have their compensations. For what is absent here there

is always, if we seek, a nobler presence about us.

Captive, see what stars give light

In the hidden heart of clay:

At their radiance dark and bright

Fades the dreamy King of Day.

We complain of conditions, but this very imperfection it is which

urges us to arise and seek for the Isles of the Immortals. What

we lack recalls the fulness. The soul has seen a brighter day

than this and a sun which never sets. Hence the retrospect: "Thou

has been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy

covering, the sardius, topaz and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx,

the jasper, the sapphire, emerald .... Thou was upon the holy

mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the

stones of fire." We would point out these radiant avenues of return;

but sometimes we feel in our hearts that we sound but cockney

choices, as guides amid the ancient temples, the cyclopean crypts

sanctified by the mysteries. To be intelligible we replace the

opalescent shining by the terms of the anatomist, and we speak of

the pineal gland and the pituitary body in the same breath with

the Most High. Yet when the soul has the vision divine it knows

not it has a body. Let it remember, and the breath of glory kindles

it no more; it is once again a captive. After all, it does not

make the mysteries clearer to speak in physical terms and do violence

to our intuitions. If we ever use these centres, as fires we shall

see them, or they shall well up within us as fountains of potent

sound. We may satisfy people's minds with a sense correspondence,

and their souls may yet hold aloof. We shall only inspire by the

magic of a superior beauty. Yet this too has its dangers. "Thou

has corrupted thy wisdom by reason of they brightness," continues

the seer. If we follow too much the elusive beauty of form we

will miss the spirit. The last secrets are for those who translate

vision into being. Does the glory fade away before thee? Say

truly in they heart, "I care not. I will wear the robes I am

endowed with today." Thou are already become beautiful, being

beyond desire and free.

Night and day no more eclipse

Friendly eyes that on us shine,

Speech from old familiar lips,

Playmates of a youth divine.

To childhood once again. We must regain the lost state. But it

is to the giant and spiritual childhood of the young immortals we

must return, when into their clear and translucent souls first fell

the rays of the father-beings. The men of old were intimates of

wind and wave and playmates of many a brightness long since forgotten.

The rapture of the fire was their rest; their outgoing was still

consciously through universal being. By darkened images we may

figure something vaguely akin, as when in rare moments under the

stars the big dreamy heart of childhood is pervaded with quiet and

brimmed full with love. Dear children of the world so tired today--

so weary seeking after the light. Would you recover strength and

immortal vigor? Not one star alone, your star, shall shed its happy

light upon you, but the All you must adore. Something intimate,

secret, unspeakable, akin to thee will emerge silently, insensibly,

and ally itself with thee as thou gatherest thyself from the four

quarters of the earth. We shall go back to the world of the dawn,

but to a brighter light than that which opened up this wondrous

story of the cycles. The forms of elder years will reappear in

our vision, the father-beings once again. So we shall grow at

home amid these grandeurs, and with that All-Presence about us

may cry in our hearts, "At last is our meeting, Immortal. Oh,

starry one, now is our rest!"

Brothers weary, come away;

We will quench the heart's desire

Past the gateways of the day

In the rapture of the fire.

--October 15, 1895

The Enchantment of Cuchullain

--By AE and Aretas (G.W. Russell and James M. Pryse)

While our vision, backward cast,

Ranged the everliving past,

Through a haze of misty things--

Luminous with quiverings

Musical as starry chimes--

Rose a hero of old times,

In whose breast the magic powers

Slumbering from primeval hours,

Woke at the enchantment wild

Of Aed Abrait's lovely child;

Still for all her Druid learning

With the wild-bird heart, whose yearning

Blinded at his strength and beauty,

Clung to love and laughed at duty.

Warrior chief, and mystic maid,

Through your stumbling footsteps strayed,

This at least in part atones--

Jewels were your stumbling-stones!

I. The Birds of Angus

The birds were a winging rapture in the twilight. White wings,

grey wings, brown wings, fluttered around and over the pine trees

that crowned the grassy dun. The highest wings flashed with a

golden light. At the sound of voices they vanished.

"How then shall we go to the plains of Murthemney? We ought not

to be known. Shall we go invisibly, or in other forms? We must

also fly as swiftly as the birds go."

"Fly! yes, yes, we shall--fly as the birds. But we shall choose

fairer forms than these. I know where the Birds of Angus flock.

Come, Liban, come!"

The crypt beneath the dun was flooded with light, silvery and golden,

a light which came not from the sun nor from the moon; a light not

born from any parent luminary, and which knew nothing opaque. More

free than the birds of the air were the shadowy forms of the two

daughters of Aed Abrait, as they gazed out from that rock-built

dun upon a place their mortal feet had never trod. Yet timidly

Liban looked at her more adventurous sister. Fand floated to the

centre of the cavern, erect and radiant. Her eyes followed the

wavy tremulous motion of the light as it rolled by. They seemed

to pierce through earth and rock, and search out the secret hollows

of the star, to know the vastness, and to dominate and compel the

motion of the light. Her sister watched her half curiously and

half in admiration and wonder. As the floating form grew more

intense the arms swayed about and the lips murmured. A sheen as

of many jewels played beneath the pearly mist which enrobed her;

over her head rose the crest of the Dragon; she seemed to become

one with the shining, to draw it backwards into herself. Then

from far away came a wondrous melody, a sound as of the ancient

chiming of the stars. The sidereal rivers flowed by with more

dazzling light, and the Birds of Angus were about them.

"Look, Liban, look!" cried the Enchantress. "These of old were

the chariots of the children of men. On these the baby offspring

of the Gods raced through the nights of diamond and sapphire. We

are not less than they though a hundred ages set us apart. We

will go forth royally as they did. Let us choose forms from among

these. If the Hound should see us he will know we have power."

With arms around each other they watched the starry flocks hurtling

about them. The birds wheeled around, fled away, and again returned.

There were winged serpents; might which would put to flight the

degenerate eagle; plumage before which the birds of paradise would

show dull as clay. These wings dipt in the dawn flashed ceaselessly.

Ah, what plumage of white fire rayed out with pinions of opalescent

glory! What feathered sprays of burning amethyst! What crests of

scarlet and gold, of citron and wavy green! They floated by in

countless multitudes; they swayed in starry clusters dripping with

light, singing a melody caught from the spheres of the Gods, the

song which of old called forth the earth from its slumber. The

sound was entrancing. Oh, fiery birds who float in the purple

rivers of the Twilight, ye who rest in the great caverns of the world,

whoever listens to your song shall grow faint with longing, for he

shall hear the great, deep call in his heart and his spirit shall

yearn to go afar; whatever eyes see you shall grow suddenly blinded

with tears for a glory that has passed away from the world, for an

empire we no longer range.

"They bring back the air of the ancient days. Ah! now I have the

heart of the child once again. Time has not known me. Let us away

with them. We will sweep over Eri and lead the starry flocks as

the queen birds."

"If we only dared. But think, Fand, we shall have every wizard

eye spying upon us, and every body who can use his freedom will

follow and thwart us. Not these forms, but others let us take.

Ah, look at those who come in grey and white and brown! Send home

the radiant ones. We will adventure with these."

"Be it so. Back to your fountains, O purple rivers! King-Bird,

Queen-Bird, to your home in the hollows lead your flock!" So she

spoke, but her words were shining and her waving arms compelled

the feathered monarchs with radiations of outstretched flame. To

the others: "Rest here awhile, sweet singers. We shall not detain

you captive for long." So she spoke, but her hands that caressed

laid to sleep the restless pulsations of the wings and lulled the

ecstatic song.

Night, which to the eye of the magian shows more clearly all that

the bright day conceals, overspread with a wizard twilight the vast

hollow of the heavens. Numberless airy rivulets, each with its

own peculiar shining, ran hither and thither like the iridescent

currents streaming over a bubble. Out of still duskier, more

darkly glowing and phantasmal depths stared the great eyes of space,

rimmed about with rainbow-dyes. As night moved on to dawn two

birds shot forth from the dun, linked together by a cord of golden

fire. They fled southwards and eastwards. As they went they sang

a song which tingled the pulses of the air. In the dark fields

the aureoles around the flowers grew momentarily brighter. Over

the mountain homes of the Tuatha de Danaans rose up shadowy forms

who watched, listened, and pondered awhile. The strayed wanderers

amid the woods heard the enraptured notes and forgot their sorrows

and life itself in a hurricane of divine remembrance. Where the

late feast was breaking up the melody suddenly floated in and

enwreathed the pillared halls, and revellers became silent where

they stood, the mighty warriors in their hands bowed low their faces.

Still on and on swept the strange birds flying southwards and eastwards.

Still in many a peasant cot

Lives the story unforgot,

While the faded parchments old

Still their rhyming tale unfold.

There is yet another book

Where thine eager eyes may look.

There within its shining pages

Lives the long romance of ages,

Liban, Fand, their glowing dreams,

Angus's birds, the magic streams

Flooding all the twilight crypt,

Runes and spells in starry script;

Secrets never whispered here

In the light are chanted clear.

Read in the tales of Eri

If the written word be weary.

Never is there day so gleaming

But the dusk o'ertakes it;

Never night so dark and dreaming

But the dawn awakes it:

And the soul has nights and days

In its own eternal ways.

II. Cuchullain's Dream

The air was cool with the coming of winter; but with the outer

cold came the inner warmth of the sun, full of subtile vitality

and strength. And the Ultonians had assembled to light the yearly

fire in honor of the Sun-God, at the seven-days' feast of Samhain.

There the warriors of Ulster rested by the sacred fire, gazing

with closed eyes upon the changing colors of the sun-breath,

catching glimpses of visions, or anon performing feats of magic

when they felt the power stirring within their breasts. They sang

the songs of old times, of the lands of the West, where their

forefathers live ere the earth-fires slew those lands, and the

sea-waves buried them, leaving only the Eri, the isle where dwelt

men so holy that the earth-fires dared not to assail it, and the

ocean stood at bay. Lightly the warriors juggled with their great

weapons of glittering bronze; and each told of his deeds in battle

and in the chase; but woe to him who boasted or spoke falsely,

magnifying his prowess, for then would his sword angrily turn of

itself in its scabbard, convicting him of untruth.

Cuchullain, youngest but mightiest of all the warriors, sat moodily

apart, his beardless chin resting in the palms of his hands, his

eyes staring fixedly at the mirror-like surface of the lake upon

whose sloping bank he rested. Laeg, his charioteer, lying at full

length upon the greensward near by, watched him intently, a gloomy

shadow darkening his unusually cheerful face.

"It's a woman's trick, that," he muttered to himself, "staring into

the water when trying to see the country of the Sidhe, and unworthy

of a warrior. And to think of him doing it, who used to have the

clearest sight, and had more power for wonder-working than anyone

else in the lands of the West! Besides, he isn't seeing anything

now, for all the help of the water. When last I went to the dun

some women of the Sidhe told me they had looked up Cuchullain and

found he was getting too dim-eyed to see anything clearly now, even

in his sleep. Its true enough, but to hear it said even by women!"

And the discontented charioteer glanced back contemptuously at a

group of women a short distance away, who were following with their

eyes a flock of wild birds circling over the plain.

"I suppose they want those birds," he continued, conversing familiarly

with himself. "Its the way of women to want everything they see,

especially if its something hard to catch, like those wild birds."

But Laeg's cynicism was not so deep as to keep his glance from

lingering upon the bevy of graceful maidens and stately matrons.

Their soft laughter reached his ear through the still evening air;

and watching their animated gestures he idly speculated upon the

plane he felt sure they were arranging.

"Yes; they want the birds. They wish to fasten the wings to their

shoulders, to make themselves look like the women of the Sidhe.

They know Cuchullain is the only man who can get the birds for them,

but even Emer, his wife, is afraid to ask him. Of course they will

coax that patient Ethne to do it. If she succeeds, she'll get no

thanks; and if she fails, she'll have all the blame, and go off

by herself to cry over the harsh words spoken by Cuchullain in his

bad temper. That's the way of Ethne, poor girl."

He was right in his conjecture, for presently Ethne left the group

and hesitatingly approached the giant warrior, who was still gazing

vacantly at the glassy surface of the water. She touched him timidly

on the shoulder. Slowly he raised his head, and still half dazed

by his long staring, listened while she made her request. He rose

to his feet sleepily, throwing out his brawny arms and expanding

his chest as he cast a keen glance at the birds slowly circling

near the ground.

"Those birds are not fit to eat," he said, turning to her with a

good-natured smile.

"But we want the wings to put on our shoulders. It would be so

good of you to get them for us," said Ethne in persuasive tones.

"If it's flying you wish to try," he said, with a laugh, "you'll

need better wings than those. However, you shall have them if I

can get within throwing distance of them."

He glanced around for Laeg. That far-seeing individual was already

yoking the horses to the chariot. A moment later, Cuchullain and

the charioteer were dashing across the plain behind the galloping

steeds. As they neared the birds, Cuchullain sent missiles at

them from his sling with such incredible rapidity and certainty

of aim that not one of the flock escaped. Each of the women was

given two of the birds; but when Ethne, who had modestly held

back when the others hurried forward to meet the returning chariot,

came to receive her share, not one remained.

"As usual," said Laeg stolidly, "if anyone fails to get her portion

of anything, its sure to be Ethne."

"Too sure," said Cuchullain, a look of compassion softening his

stern features. He strode over to Ethne, and placing his hand

gently on her head said: "Don't take your disappointment to heart,

little woman; when any more birds come to the plains of Murthemney,

I promise to get for you the most beautiful of them all."

"There's a fine brace of them now, flying towards us," exclaimed

Laeg, pointing across the lake. "And I think I hear them singing.

Queer birds, those; for I see a cord as of red gold between them."

Nearer and nearer swept the strange beings of the air, and as their

weird melody reached the many Ultonians at the Samhain fire, the

stalwart warriors, slender maidens, the youthful and the time-worn,

all felt the spell and became as statues, silent, motionless,

entranced. Alone the three at the chariot felt not the binding

influences of the spell. Cuchullain quietly fitted a smooth pebble

into his sling. Ethne looked appealingly at Laeg, in whose sagacity

she greatly trusted. A faint twinkle of the eye was the only sign

that betrayed the thought of the charioteer as he tried to return

her glance with a look of quiet unconcern. She hastened after

Cuchullain, who had taken his stand behind a great rock on the

lake shore which concealed him from the approaching birds.

"Do not try to take them," she entreated; "there is some strange

power about them which your eyes do not see; I feel it, and my

heart is filled with dread."

The young warrior made no reply, but whirling his sling above his

head sent the missile with terrific force at the two swan-like

voyagers of the air. It went far astray, and splashed harmlessly

into the lake, throwing up a fountain of spray. Cuchullain's face

grew dark. Never before in war or the chase had he missed so easy

a mark. Angrily he caught a javelin from his belt and hurled it

at the birds, which had swerved from their course and were now

flying swiftly away. It was a mighty cast, even for the strong

arm of the mightiest warrior of Eri; and the javelin, glittering

in the sun, was well on the downward curve of its long flight, its

force spent, when its point touched the wing of the nearest bird.

A sphere of golden flame seemed to glitter about them as they turned

downward and disappeared beneath the deep waters of the lake.

Cuchullain threw himself upon the ground, leaning his broad shoulders

against the rock.

"Leave me," he said in sullen tones to Ethne; "my senses are dull

with sleep from long watching at the Samhain fire. For the first

time since I slew the hound of Culain my right arm has failed me.

My eyes are clouded, and strange music murmurs in my heart."

His eyes closed, his heavy breathing was broken by sighs, and

anguish distorted his features. Ethne watched him awhile, and

then stole quietly back to where the warriors were and said to them:

"Cuchullain lies slumbering by yonder rock, and he moans in his

sleep as if the people of the Sidhe were reproaching his soul for

some misdeed. I fear those birds that had the power behind them.

Should we not waken him?"

But while they held council, and some were about to go and awaken him.

Fergus mac Roy, foster-father of Cuchullain, arose, and all drew back

in awe, for they saw the light of the Sun-God shining from his eyes,

and his voice had the Druid ring as he said in stern tones of command:

"Touch him not, for he sees a vision; the people of the Sidhe are

with him; and from the far distant past, even from the days of the

sunken lands of the West, I see the hand of Fate reach out and

grasp the warrior of Eri, to place him on a throne where he shall

rule the souls of men."

To Cuchullain it did not seem that he slept; for though his eyelids

fell, his sight still rested on the calm surface of the lake, the

shining sand on the shore, and the great brown rock against which

he reclined. But whence came the two maidens who were walking

toward him along the glistening sand? He gazed at them in speechless

wonder; surely only in dreamland could so fair a vision be seen.

In dreamland, yes; for a dim memory awoke in his breast that he

had seen them before in the world of slumber. One wore a mantle

of soft green, and her flaxen hair, strangely white but with a

glint of gold, fell about her shoulders so thickly it seemed like

a silken hood out of which looked a white face with gleaming violet

eyes. The other maiden had dark brown eyes, very large, very luminous;

her cheeks were rosy, with just a hint of bronzing by the sunshine,

a dimple in her chin added to the effect of her pouting red lips;

her dark brown hair was unbound and falling loosely over her deep

crimson mantle, which reached from her waist in five heavy folds.

The recumbent warrior felt a weird spell upon him. Powerless to

move or speak, he saw the two maidens advance and stand beside him,

the sunlight gleaming upon their bare arms and bosoms. They smiled

upon him and uplifted their arms, and then from their fingers there

rained down upon him blinding lightnings, filaments of flame that

stung like whipcords, a hail of rainbow sparks that benumbed him,

darting flames that pierced him like javelins; and as he gazed

upward through that storm of fire, writhing in his agony, he saw

still their white arms waving to and from, weaving a network of

lightnings about him, their faces smiling upon him, serene and kindly;

and in the eyes of her with the crimson mantle he read a tenderness

all too human. Eyes that shone with tenderness; white arms that

wove a rainbow-mesh of torturing fires about him; his anguish

ever increasing, until he saw the arms stop waving, held for an

instant aloft, and then swept downward with a torrent of flame

and a mighty crash of sound like the spears of ten thousand warriors

meeting in battle, and then--he was alone, staring with wide-open

eyes at the blue, cloud-mirroring surface of the lakes and the

white sand gleaming on the shore.

"Trouble me not with questions," said Cuchullain to the warriors

gathered about him. "My limbs are benumbed and refuse to obey me.

Bear me to my sick-bed at Tete Brece."

"Shall we not take you to Dun Imrish, or to Dun Delca, where you

may be with Emer?" said they.

"No," he replied, a shudder convulsing his strong frame; "bear me

to Tete Brece.

And when they had done so, he dwelt there for a year, and on his

face was always the look of a slumberer who is dreaming; not once

did he smile, nor did he speak one word during that year.

When the soul has many lives

Fettered by Forgetfulness,

Hands that burst its long-worn gyves

Cruel seem and pitiless.

Yet they come all tenderly,

Loved companions of the past;

And the sword that sets us free

Turns our pain to peace at last.

III.

What shadows turn his eyes away

Who fain would scale the heavenly heights;

There shines the beauty of a day,

And there the ancient Light of Lights.

And while he broods on visions dim

And grows forgetful of his fate,

The chariot of the Sun for him

And all the tribal stars await.

The Slumber of Cuchullain, and the Message of Angus

Within the door at Tete Brece, under the shadow of the thatch, the

couch of Cuchullain was placed, so that if he willed he could gaze

over the rich green fields to the distant rim of blue hills. Yet

rarely opened he his eyes or gazed with outward understanding during

that weary year. Often the watchers round his bed, looking on the

white rigid face, wondered if he were indeed living. But they

dared not awaken him, for the seers had found that his slumber was

filled with mystic life, and that it was not lawful to call him forth.

Was the gloom of the great warrior because he was but the shadow

of his former self, or was that pale form indeed empty? So pondered

Fergus, Conail, Lugard and Ethne, faithful companions. But he in

himself was wrapped in a mist of visions appearing fast and vanishing

faster. The fiery hands that smote him had done their work well,

and his darkness had become bright with remembrance. The majesty

of elder years swept by him with reproachful glance, and the hero

cowered before the greatness of his own past. Born out of the womb

of the earth long ago in the fulness of power--what shadow had dimmed

his beauty? He tracked and retraced countless steps. Once more he

held sceptred sway over races long since in oblivion. He passed

beyond the common way until the powers of the vast knew and obeyed

him. As he looked back there was one always with him. Lu, the

Sun-God, who in the bright days of childhood had appeared to him

as his little feet ran from home in search for adventures. Remote

and dim, nigh and radiant, he was always there. In solemn initiations

in crypts beneath the giant hills he rose up, gemmed and starred

with living fires, and grew one with the God, and away, away with

him he passed into the lands of the immortals, or waged wars more

than human, when from the buried lands of the past first came the

heroes eastward to Eri and found the terrible Fomorian enchanters

dwelling in the sacred isle. In dream Cuchullain saw the earth-

scorning warriors rise up and wage their battle in the bright aether,

and the great Sun-Chieftain, shining like gold, lead his glittering

hosts. In mountainous multitudes the giantesque phantoms reeled to

and from, their mighty forms wreathed in streams of flame, while

the stars paled and shuddered as they fought.

There was yet another face, another form, often beside him;

whispering, luring, calling him away to he knew not what wild

freedom. It was the phantom form of the child of Aed Abrait, with

dark flowing tresses, mystic eyes, her face breathing the sweetness

of the sun, with all the old nobility of earth, but elate and apart,

as one who had been in the crystal spheres of the unseen and bathed

in its immortalizing rivers and drunk the starry dews.

Come, Cu. Come, O hero," she whispered. "There are fiery fountains

of life which will renew thee. We will go where the Sidhe dwell,

where the golden life-breath flows up from the mountains in a

dazzling radiance to the ever-shining regions of azure and pearl

under the stars. Glad is everything that lives in that place.

Come, Cu, come away." And she passed from beside him with face

half turned, calling, beckoning, till in his madness he forgot the

bright Sun-God and the warriors of Eri awaiting his guidance.

It was again the feast of Samhain. About twilight in the evening

a shadow darkened the door. A man in blue mantle stood outside;

he did not enter but looked around him a little while and then sat

down, laughing softly to himself. Fergus, Conail and Lugard rose

simultaneously, glad of the pretence of warning off the intruder

as a relief from their monotonous watch.

"Do you not know," said Conail sternly, "that one lies ill here

who must not be disturbed?"

The stranger arose.

"I will tell you a tale," he said. "As I was strolling through

the trees I saw a radiance shining around the dun, and I saw one

floating in that light like a mighty pillar of fire, or bronze

ruddy and golden: a child of the Sun he seemed; the living fires

curled about him and rayed from his head. He looked to the north

and to the west, to the south and to the east, and over all Eri he

shot his fiery breaths rainbow-colored, and the dark grew light

before him where he gazed. Indeed if he who lies here were well

he would be mightiest among your warriors. But I think that now

he clasps hands with the heroes of the Sidhe as well, and with

Druid power protects the Ultonians. I feel happy to be beside him."

"It is Lu Lamfada guarding the hero. Now his destiny will draw

nigh to him again," thought Cu's companions, and they welcomed

the stranger.

"I see why he lies here so still," he continued, his voice strange

like one who is inspired while he speaks. "The Sidhe looked out

from their mountains. They saw a hero asleep. They saw a God

forgetful. They stirred him to shame by the hands of women. They

showed him the past. They said to Fand and Libau, 'Awake him.

Bring him to us. Let him come on the night of Samhain.' They

showed the chosen one from afar, in a vision while hid in their

mountains. The Tuatha de Danaans, the immortals, wish for Cuchullain

to aid them. The daughters of Aed Abrait are their messengers.

If Fand and Liban were here they would restore the hero."

"Who are you?" asked Laeg, who had joined them.

"I am Angus, son of Aed Abrait." While he spoke his form quivered

like a smoke, twinkling in misty indistinctness in the blue twilight,

and then vanished before their eyes.

"I wonder now," muttered Laeg to himself, "if he was sent by the

Sidhe, or by Liban and Fand only. When one has to deal with women

everything is uncertain. Fand trusts more in her beauty to arouse

him than in her message. I have seen her shadow twenty times cooing

about him. It is all an excuse for love-making with her. It is

just like a woman. Anything, however, would be better for him than

to lie in bed." He went off to join the others. Cuchullain was

sitting up and was telling the story of what happened last Samhain.

"What should I do?" he asked.

"Go to the wise King," said Laeg, and so they all advised, for ever

since the day when he was crowned, and the Druids had touched him

with fire, a light of wisdom shone about Concobar the King.

"I think you should go to the rock where the women of the Sidhe

appeared to you," said Concobar when appealed to.

So Laeg made ready the chariot and drove to the tarn. Night came

ere they reached it, but the moon showed full and brilliant. Laeg

waited a little way apart, while Cuchullain sat himself in the

black shadow of the rock. As the warrior gazed into the dark,

star-speckled surface of the waters, a brightness and a mist

gathered over them, and there, standing with her robe of green

down--dropping to her feet and trailing on the wave, her pale

flaxen hair blown around her head, was Liban. She smiled strangely

as before, looking through him with her subtle eyes.

"I am one of the Sidhe," she said, and her voice sounded like a

murmur of the water. "You also, O warrior, though forgetful, are

one of us. We did not indeed come to injure you, but to awaken

remembrance. For now the wild clouds of demons gathered from the

neighboring isles and we wish your aid. Your strength will come

back to you exultant as of old. Come with me, warrior. You will

have great companions. Labraid, who wields the rapid fires as you

the sword, and Fand, who has laid aside her Druid wisdom longing

for you."

"Whither must I go with you, strange woman?" asked Cuchullain.

"To Mag-Mell."

"I will send Laeg with you," said Cuchullain. I do not care to go

to an unknown place while I have my duties here." He then went to

Laeg, asking him to go with Liban.

"He is longing to go," thought Laeg, "but he mistrusts his power

to get away. He has forgotten all he knew and did not wish to

appear nothing before a woman. However, it can do no harm if I

go and see what they do."

Oh, marvel not if in our tale

The gleaming figures come and go,

More mystic splendors shine and pale

Than in an age outworn we know.

Their ignorance to us were wise:

Their sins our virtue would outshine:

A glory passed before their eyes:

We hardly dream of the divine.

In world may come romance,

With all the lures of love and glamour;

And woesome tragedy will chance

To him whom fairy forms enamour.

There slain illusions live anew

To stay the soul with coy caresses;

But he who only loves the True

Slays them again, and onward presses.

For golden chains are yet but chains,

Enchanted dreams are yet but dreaming;

And ere the soul its freedom gains

It bursts all bonds, destroys all seeming.

IV. The Maidens of the Sidhe

"Yes, I'll go with the maid in the green mantle," muttered Laeg to

himself; "but I'll don the crimson mantle of five folds which it

is my right to wear in the land of the Sidhe, even though my earthly

occupation is only the driving of a war-chariot."

He began chanting softly; a golden gleam as of sunshine swept

circling about him; then as the chant ceased a look of wild

exultation came to his face, and he threw up his arms, so that

for an instant he had the aspect he wore when guiding the great

war-chariot of Cuchullain into the thick of battle. His swaying

form fell softly upon the greensward, and above it floated a

luminous figure clad in a crimson mantle, but whose face and bare

arms were of the color of burnished bronze. So impassive and

commanding was his face that even Liban faltered a little as she

stole to his side. Cuchullain watched the two figures as they

floated slowly over the dark expanse of the lake, till they suddenly

disappeared, seemingly into its quiet surface. Then with his face

buried in his hands he sat motionless, absorbed in deep thought,

while he waited until the return of Laeg.

The recumbent form of Liban rose from the crouch where it had lain

entranced. Before her stood the phantom figure of Laeg. All in

the house save herself were asleep, but with the conscious sleep

of the Sidhe, and their shades spoke welcome to Laeg, each saying

to him in liquid tones such as come never from lips of clay:

"Welcome to you, Laeg; welcome because of her who brings you, of

him who sent you, and of yourself."

He saw about him only women of the Sidhe, and knew that he was in

one of the schools established by the wise men of Eri for maidens

who would devote their lives to holiness and Druid learning;

maidens who should know no earthly love but fix their eyes ever

on the light of the Sun-god. But not seeing Fand among them, he

turned with an impatient gesture to Liban. She read his gesture

aright, and said:

"My sister dwells apart; she has more knowledge, and presides over

all of us."

Leaving the room, she walked down a corridor, noiselessly save for

the rustle of her long robe of green, which she drew closely about

her, for the night was chill. An unaccustomed awe rested upon her,

and to Laeg she whispered:

"The evil enchanters have power tonight, so that your life would

be in danger if you had not the protection of a maiden of the Sun."

But a smile wreathed for an instant the bronze-hue face of the

shadowy charioteer, as he murmured in tones of kindness near to pity,

softening his rude words:

"Till now nor Cuchullain nor I have ever felt the need of a woman's

protection, and I would much rather he were here now than I."

Drawing aside a heavy curtain, Liban entered her sister's room.

They saw Fand seated at a little table. A scroll lay on it open

before her, but her eyes were not fixed on it. With hands clasped

under her chin she gazed into the vacancies with eyes of far-away

reflection and longing. There was something pathetic in the

intensity and wistfulness of the lonely figures. She turned and

rose to meet them, a smile of rare tenderness lighting up her face

as she saw Liban. The dim glow of a single lamp but half revealed

the youthful figure, the pale, beautiful face, out of which the

sun-colours had faded. Her hair of raven hue was gathered in massy

coils over her head and fastened there by a spiral torque of gleaming

gold. Her mantle, entirely black, which fell to her feet, made her

features seem more strangely young, more startlingly in contrast

with the monastic severity of the room. It was draped round with

some dark unfigured hangings. A couch with a coverlet of furs,

single chair of carved oak, the little table, and a bronze censer

from which a faint aromatic odor escaping filled the air and stole

on the sense, completed the furniture of the room, which might

rather have been the cell of some aged Druid than the chamber of

one of the young maidens of Eri, who were not overgiven to ascetic

habits. She welcomed Laeg with the same terms of triple welcome

as did the mystic children of the sun who had first gathered round him.

Her brilliant eyes seemed to read deep the soul of the charioteer.

Then Liban came softly up to her, saying:

"Oh, Fand, my soul is sad this night. The dark powers are gathering

their strength to assail us, and we shall need to be pure and strong.

Yet you have said that you feel no longer the Presence with you;

that Mannanan, the Self of the Sun, shines not in your heart!"

Fan placed her hand upon her sister's flaxen head, saying with a

voice mingled joy and pathos:

"Peace, child; you, of us all, have least to fear, for though I,

alas! am forsaken, yet He who is your Father and Yourself is even

now here with you."

Liban fell on her knees, with her hands clasped and her eyes uplifted

in a rapture of adoration, for above her floated one whom she well

knew. Yet unheeding her and stern of glance, with his right arm

outstretched, from which leaped long tongues of flame, swordlike,

into space, Labraid towered above gazing upon foes unseen by them.

Slowly the arm fell and the stern look departed from the face.

Ancient with the youth of the Gods, it was such a face and form

the toilers in the shadowy world, mindful of their starry dynasties,

sought to carve in images of upright and immovable calm amid the

sphinxes of the Nile or the sculptured Gods of Chaldaea. So upright

and immovable in such sculptured repose appeared Labraid, his body

like a bright ruby flame, sunlit from its golden heart. Beneath

his brows his eyes looked full of secrecy. The air pulsing and

heaving about him drove Laeg backward from the centre of the room.

He appeared but a child before this potent spirit. Liban broke

out into a wild chant of welcome:

"Oh see now how burning,

How radiant in might,

From battle returning

The Dragon of Light!

Where wert thou, unsleeping

Exile from the throne,

In watch o'er the weeping,

The sad and the lone.

The sun-fires of Eri

Burned low on the steep;

The watchers were weary

Or sunken in sleep;

And dread were the legions

Of demons who rose

From the uttermost regions

Of ice and of snows;

And on the red wind borne,

Unspeakable things

From wizard's dark mind borne

On shadowy wings.

The darkness was lighted

With whirlwinds of flame;

The demons affrighted

Fled back whence they came.

For thou wert unto them

The vision that slays:

Thy fires quivered through them

In arrowy rays.

Oh, light amethystine,

Thy shadow inspire,

And fill with the pristine

Vigor of fire.

Though thought like a fountain

Pours dream upon dream,

Unscaled is the mountain

Where thou still dost gleam,

And shinest afar like

The dawning of day,

Immortal and starlike

In rainbow array."

But he, the shining one, answered, and his voice had that melody

which only those know whom the Sun-breath has wafted into worlds divine:

"Vaunt not, poor mortal one, nor claim knowledge when the Gods know

not. He who is greatest among all the sons of evil now waits for

the hour to strike when he may assail us and have with him all the

hosts of the foes of light. What may be the issue of the combat

cannot be foreseen by us. Yet mortals, unwise, ever claim to know

when even the Gods confess ignorance; for pride blinds all mortals,

and arrogance is born of their feebleness."

Unabashed she cried out:

"Then rejoice, for we have awakened Cu, the warrior-magician of

old times, and his messenger is her."

Then he answered gently, pityingly:

"We need the help of each strong soul, and you have done well to

arouse that slumbering giant. If through his added strength we

conquer, then will he be the saviour of Eri; beloved by the Gods,

he will cease to be a wild warrior on earth, and become a leader

of mortals, aiding them on the way to the immortals. Wisely have

you awakened him, and yet--"

He smiled, and such was the pity in his smiling glance that Liban

bowed her head in humiliation. When she raised it he was gone,

and Laeg also had vanished. She arose, and with a half-sob threw

herself into the arms of her sister. So they stood, silent, with

tearless eyes; for they were too divine for tears, although,

alas! too human.

Slowly the chariot rolled on its homeward way, for Laeg, seeing

the weakness and weariness of Cuchullain, held the great steeds

in check; their arched necks and snorting breath resenting the

restraint, while the impatient stamping of their hoofs struck fire

from the pebbly road.

"Well," said Cuchullain moodily, "tell me what happened after you

went away with that woman of the Sidhe."

Briefly and without comment of his own Laeg stated what he had seen.

Then long Cuchullain pondered; neither spoke, and the silence was

broken only by the stamping of the steeds and the rumble of the

chariot wheels. Dark clouds drifted athwart the moon, and the

darkness gave more freedom of speech, for Cuchullain said in measured,

expressionless tones:

"And what do you think of all this?"

"What do I think?" burst forth Laeg with sudden fire; "I think

you had better be leaving those women of the Sidhe alone, and they

you. That Fand would lose her soul for love, and the spell they've

cast over you is evil, or it wouldn't make a warrior like you as

helpless as a toddling babe."

In letting loose his pent-up wrath Laeg had unconsciously loosened

as well the reined-in steeds, who sprang forward impetuously, and

the jolting of the car was all that Cuchullain could bear in his

enfeebled state. Recovering himself, the charioteer drew them in

check again, inwardly upbraiding himself for carelessness.

Sorrowful and broken was the voice of the warrior as he said:

"On the morrow, Laeg, you shall bear a message to Emer. Tell her

the Sidhe have thrown a spell of helplessness upon me while deceiving

me with false visions of my aiding them in their war with the evil

enchanters. Ask Emer to come to me, for her presence may help to

rouse me from this spell that benumbs my body and clouds my mind."

Then Laeg sought to console him, saying:

"No, no; the Sidhe wrong no one. Their message to you was true;

but their messengers were women, and you were a warrior. That is

why the mischance came, for it is ever the way with a woman to

become foolish over a warrior, and then there is always a muddle.

And when Emer comes--," he checked his indiscreet utterance by

pretending to have a difficulty in restraining the horses, and

then added confusedly: "Besides, I'd rather be in your plight

than in Fand's."

"Has Emer come?" asked Cuchullain, drawing himself up on his couch

and resting on his elbow.

"Yes," said Laeg dejectedly; "I have brought her. She has been

talking to me most of the journey. Now she'll be after talking

to you, but you needn't mind; it isn't her ususal way, and she

isn't as unreasonable as might be expected. She puts most of the

blame of your illness on me, though perhaps that is because it was

me she was talking to. Insists that as I can go to the Plain of

Fire where the Sidhe live I ought to be able to find a way of curing

you. She has expressed that idea to me many times, with a fluency

and wealth of illustration that would make a bard envious. Here

she comes now. I'll just slip out and see if the horses are being

properly cared for."

He had not overstated the case, for the sweet face of Emer was

clouded with wrath as she approached the sick-bed of her husband.

Bitterly she reproached him for what she claimed was only a feigned

illness, and expressed her conviction that no theory would account

for his conduct save that, faithless to her his wife, he had fallen

in love. But Cuchullain made no answer, for not only was he

invincible in battle, but also wise in the matter of holding his

tongue when a woman warred against him with words.

"You are looking stronger," said Laeg, when next he saw him alone.

"Yes," he returned, "the speech of Emer has roused me a little

from my torpor. I have been thinking that possibly we were wrong

in disregarding the message brought by the women of the Sidhe.

They surely have power to break this spell, and doubtless would

have done so had you not fled from them so inconsiderately."

"I was thinking the same when Emer was coming here with me," observed

Laeg. "Her speech roused me a little too."

Cuchullain was silent awhile and then said reflectively:

"Do you think we could find Liban again?"

"There would be no difficulty about that," Laeg replied drily.

"Then," said Cuchullain with sudden energy, "let us go once more

to the rock of the visions."

Our souls give battle when the host

Of lurid lives that lurk in Air,

And Ocean's regions nethermost,

Come forth from every loathsome lair:

For then are cloudland battles fought

With spears of lightning, swords of flame,

No quarter given, none besought,

Till to the darkness whence they came

The Sons of Night are hurled again.

Yet while the reddened skies resound

The wizard souls of evil men

Within the demon ranks are found,

While pure and strong the heroes go

To join the strife, and reck no odds,

For they who face the wizard foe

Clasp hands heroic with the gods.

What is the love of shadowy lips

That know not what they seek or press,

From whom the lure for ever slips

And fails their phantom tenderness?

The mystery and light of eyes

That near to mine grow dim and cold;

They move afar in ancient skies

Mid flame and mystic darkness rolled.

Oh, hero, as thy heart o'erflows

In tender yielding unto me,

A vast desire awakes and grows

Unto forgetfulness of thee.

V. The Mantle of Mannanan

Again Liban stood before them, and her eyes were full of reproach.

"You doubt the truth of my message," she said. "Come, then, to the

Plain of Fire, and you shall see the one who sent me."

"I doubt you not," said Cuchullain quietly; "but it is not fitting

that I should go when the message is brought by a woman, for such

is the warning I have had in vision from Lu Lamfada. Laeg shall

go with you, and if he brings back the same message, then I shall

do the bidding of the Sidhe, and wage war against the evil enchanters,

even as when a lad I vanquished the brook of wizards at Dun-mic-Nectan."

"Where did Liban take you this time, Laeg? Have you brought back

a message from the Sidhe?"

"I have seen the Chief," said Laeg, whose doubts had vanished and

whose whole manner had changed. "Cuchullain, you must go. You

remember how we went together to Brusna by the Boyne, and what

wonders they showed us in the sacred crypt. Yet this is a place

more marvelous--thrice. Well indeed did Liban call it the Plain

of Fire, for a breath of fire is in the air for leagues and leagues

around. On the lake where the Sidhe dwell the fishers row by and

see nothing, or, mayhap, a flicker of phantasmal trees around the dun.

These trees are rooted in a buried star beneath the earth; when its

heart pulsates they shine like gold, aye, and are fruited with ruby

lights. Indeed this Labraid is one of the Gods. I saw him come

through the flaming rivers of the underworld. He was filled with

the radiance. I am not given to dread the Sidhe, but there was

that in him which compelled awe: for oh, he came from the homes

that were anciently ours--ours who are fallen, and whose garments

once bright are stained by the lees of time. He greeted me kindly.

He knew me by my crimson mantle with five folds. He asked for you;

indeed they all wish to have you there."

"Did he say aught further?"

"No, he spoke but little; but as I returned by Mag Luada I had a

vision. I saw you standing under the sacred Tree of Victory.

There were two mighty ones, one on each side of you, but they seemed

no greater than you."

"Was Fand there?" asked Cuchullain.

"Yes," said Laeg reluctantly; "I saw her and spoke to her, although

I did not wish to. I feared for myself. Ethne and Emer are beautiful

women, but this woman is not like them. She is half divine. The

holiest Druids might lose his reason over her."

"Let us go thither," said Cuchullain.

The night was clear, breathless, pure as diamond. The giant lights

far above floated quietly in the streams of space. Below slept

the lake mirroring the shadowy blue of the mountains. The great

mounds, the homes of the Sidhe, were empty; but over them floated

a watchful company, grave, majestic, silent, waiting. In stately

procession their rich, gleaming figures moved to and fro in groups

of twos and threes, emblazoning the dusky air with warm colors.

A little apart, beyond the headland at the island's edge, two more

commanding than the rest communed together. The wavering water

reflected head-long their shining figures in its dark depths;

above them the ancient blue of the night rose as a crown. These

two were Labraid and the warrior of Murthemney restored to all his

Druid power. Terrible indeed in its beauty, its power, its calm,

was this fiery phantasmal form beside the king of the Sidhe.

"We came to Eri many, many ages ago," said Labraid; "from a land

the people of today hold no memory of. Mighty for good and for

evil were the dwellers in that land, but its hour struck and the

waters of the ocean entomb it. In this island, which the mighty

Gods of Fire kept apart and sacred, we made our home. But after

long years a day came when the wise ones must needs depart from

this also. They went eastward. A few only remained to keep alive

the tradition of what was, the hope of what will be again. For in

this island, it is foretold, in future ages will arise a light

which will renew the children of time. But now the world's great

darkness has come. See what exhalations arise! What demons would

make Eri their home!"

Away at the eastern verge a thick darkness was gathering; a pitchy

blackness out of which a blood--red aerial river rolled and shot

its tides through the arteries of the night. It came nigher. It

was dense with living creatures, larvae, horrible shapes with waving

tendrils, white withered things restless and famished, hoglike faces,

monstrosities. As it rolled along there was a shadowy dropping

over hamlet and village and field.

"Can they not be stayed? Can they not be stayed?" rang the cry of Fand.

The stern look on Cuchullain's face deepened.

"Is it these pitiful spectres we must wage war against? Labraid,

it is enough. I will go--alone. Nay, my brother, one is enough

for victory."

Already he was oblivious of the Sidhe, the voices of Fand and Laeg

calling him. A light like a wonder-mist broke dazzling about him.

Through a mist of fire, an excess of light, they saw a transcendent

form of intensest gold treading the air. Over the head of the god

a lightning thread like a serpent undulated and darted. It shed

a thousand dazzling rays; it chanted in a myriad tones as it went

forward. Wider grew the radiant sphere and more triumphant the

chant as he sped onward and encountered the overflow of hell. Afar

off the watchers saw and heard the tumult, cries of a horrible

conflict, agonies of writhing and burning demons scorched and

annihilated, reeling away before the onset of light. On and still

on he sped, now darkened and again blazing like the sun.

"Look! look!" cried Laeg, breathless with exultation as the dazzling

phantom towered and waved its arms on the horizon.

"They lied who said he was powerless," said Fand, no less exultant.

"Cu, my darling," murmured the charioteer; "I know now why I loved

you, what burned within you."

"Shall we not go and welcome him when he returns?" said Liban.

"I should not advise it," Laeg answered. "Is it to meet that fury

of fire when he sinks back blind and oblivious? He would slay his

dearest friend. I am going away from here as fast as I can."

Through the dark forests at dawn the smoke began to curl up from

dun and hamlet, and, all unconscious of the war waged over their

destinies, children awoke to laugh and men and women went forth

to breathe the sweet air of morning.

Cuchullain started from a dream of more ancient battles, of wars

in heaven. Through the darkness of the room he saw the shadowy

forms of the two daughters of Aed Abrait; not as before, the

mystic maidens armed with Druid power, but women, melting, tender,

caressing. Violet eyes shining with gratitude; darker eyes burning

with love, looked into his. Misty tresses fell over him.

"I know not how the battle went," he sighed. "I remember the fire

awoke. .... Lu was with me. .... I fell back in a blinding mist

of flame and forgot everything."

"Doubt it not. Victory went with thee, warrior," said Liban. "We

saw thee: it was wonderful. How the seven splendors flashed and

the fiery stars roved around you and scattered the demons!"

"Oh, do not let your powers sink in sleep again," broke forth Fand.

"What are the triumphs of earthly battles to victories like these?

What is rule over a thousand warriors to kingship over the skyey

hosts? Of what power are spear and arrow beside the radiant sling

of Lu? Do the war-songs of the Ultonians inspire thee ever like

the terrible chant of fire? After freedom can you dwell in these

gloomy duns? What are the princeliest of them beside the fiery

halls of Tir-na-noge and the flame-built cities of the Gods? As

for me, I would dwell where the great ones of ancient days have

gone, and worship at the shrine of the silent and unutterable Awe."

"I would go indeed," said Cuchullain; "but still--but still--:

it is hard to leave the green plains of Murthemney, and the Ultonians

who have fought by my side, and Laeg, and--"

"Laeg can come with us. Nor need Conchobar, or Fergus or Conail

be forgotten. Far better can you aid them with Druid power than

with the right arm a blow may make powerless in battle. Go with

Laeg to Iban-Cind-Trachta. Beside the yew-tree there is a dun.

There you can live hidden from all. It is a place kept sacred by

the might of the Sidhe. I will join you there."

A month passed. In a chamber of the Dun the Yew-tree, Fand,

Cuchullain and Laeg were at night. The two latter sat by an oaken

table and tried by divination to peer into the future. Fand,

withdrawn in the dark shadow of a recess, lay on a couch and looked on.

Many thoughts went passing through her mind. Now the old passion of

love would rise in her heart to be quenched by a weary feeling of

futility, and then a half-contempt would curl her lips as she saw

the eagerness of her associates. Other memories surged up. "Oh,

Mannanan, Father-Self, if thou hadst not left me and my heart had

not turned away! It was not a dream when I met thee and we entered

the Ocean of Fire together. Our beauty encompassed the world.

Radiant as Lu thy brother of the Sun we were. Far away as the dawn

seems the time. How beautiful, too, was that other whose image in

the hero enslaves my heart. Oh, that he would but know himself,

and learn that on this path the greatest is the only risk worth

taking! And now he holds back the charioteer also and does him

wrong." Just then something caused her to look up. She cried out,

"Laeg, Laeg, do you see anything?"

"What is it?" said Laeg. Then he also looked and started. "Gods!" he

murmured. "Emer! I would rather face a tempest of Formorian enchanters."

"Do you not see?" repeated Fand scornfully. "It is Emer the

daughter of Forgall. Has she also become one of the Sidhe that

she journeys thus?"

"She comes in dream," said Laeg.

"Why do you intrude upon our seclusion here? You know my anger is

no slight thing," broke out Cuchullain, in ready wrath hiding his

confusion. The shadow of Emer turned, throwing back the long, fair

hair from her face the better to see him. There was no dread on it,

but only outraged womanly dignity. She spake and her voice seemed to

flow from a passionate heart far away brooding in sorrowful loneliness.

"Why do I come? Has thou not degraded me before all the maidens

of Eri by forsaking me for a woman of the Sidhe without a cause?

You ask why I come when every one of the Ultonians looks at me in

questioning doubt and wonder! But I see you have found a more

beautiful partner."

"We came hither, Laeg and I, to learn the lore of the Sidhe. Why

should you not leave me here for a time, Emer? This maiden is of

wondrous magical power: she is a princess in her own land, and is

as pure and chaste to this hour as you."

"I see indeed she is more beautiful than I am. That is why you

are drawn away. Her face has not grown familiar. Everything that

is new or strange you follow. The passing cheeks are ruddier than

the pale face which has shared your troubles. What you know is

weariness, and you leave it to learn what you do not know. The

Ultonians falter while you are absent from duty in battle and

council, and I, whom you brought with sweet words when half a

child from my home, am left alone. Oh, Cuchullain, beloved, I

was once dear to thee, and if today or tomorrow were our first

meeting I should be so again."

A torrent of self-reproach and returning love overwhelmed him.

"I swear to you," he said brokenly, through fast-flowing tears,

"you are immortally dear to me, Emer."

"Then you leave me," burst forth Fand, rising to her full height,

her dark, bright eyes filled with a sudden fire, an image of mystic

indignation and shame.

"If indeed," said Emer softly, "joy and love and beauty are more

among the Sidhe than where we dwell in Eri, then it were better

for thee to remain."

"No, he shall not now," said Fand passionately. "It is I whom he

shall leave. I long foresaw this moment, but ran against fate like

a child. Go, warrior, Cu; tear this love out of thy heart as I

out of mine. Go, Laeg, I will not forget thee. Thou alone hast

thought about these things truly. But now--I cannot speak." She

flung herself upon the couch in the dark shadow and hid her face

away from them.

The pale phantom wavered and faded away, going to one who awoke

from sleep with a happiness she could not understand. Cuchullain

and Laeg passed out silently into the night. At the door of the

dun a voice they knew not spake:

"So, warrior, you return. It is well. Not yet for thee is the

brotherhood of the Sidhe, and thy destiny and Fand's lie far apart.

Thine is not so great but it will be greater, in ages yet to come,

in other lands, among other peoples, when the battle fury in thee

shall have turned to wisdom and anger to compassion. Nations that

lie hidden in the womb of time shall hail thee as friend, deliverer

and saviour. Go and forget what has passed. This also thou shalt

forget. It will not linger in thy mind; but in thy heart shall

remain the memory and it will urge thee to nobler deeds. Farewell,

warrior, saviour that is to be!"

As the two went along the moon lit shore mighty forms followed,

and there was a waving of awful hands over them to blot out memory.

In the room where Fand lay with mad beating heart tearing itself

in remorse, there was one watching with divine pity. Mannanan,

the Golden Glory, the Self of the Sun. "Weep not, O shadow; thy

days of passion and pain are over." breathed the Pity in her breast.

"Rise up, O Ray, from thy sepulchre of forgetfulness. Spirit come

forth to they ancient and immemorial home." She rose up and stood

erect. As the Mantle of Mannanan enfolded her, no human words

could tell the love, the exultation, the pathos, the wild passion

of surrender, the music of divine and human life interblending.

Faintly we echo--like this spake the Shadow and like this the Glory.

The Shadow

Who art thou, O Glory,

In flame from the deep,

Where stars chant their story,

Why trouble my sleep?

I hardly had rested,

My dreams wither now:

Why comest thou crested

And gemmed on they brow?

The Glory

Up, Shadow, and follow

The way I will show;

The blue gleaming hollow

To-night we will know,

And rise mid the vast to

The fountain of days;

From whence we had pass to

The parting of ways.

The Shadow

I know thee, O Glory:

Thine eyes and thy brow

With white fire all hoary

Come back to me now.

Together we wandered

In ages agone;

Our thoughts as we pondered

Were stars at the dawn.

The glory has dwindled,

My azure and gold:

Yet you keep enkindled

The Sun-fire of old.

My footsteps are tied to

The heath and the stone;

My thoughts earth-allied-to--

Ah! leave me alone.

Go back, thou of gladness,

Nor wound me with pain,

Nor spite me with madness,

Nor come nigh again.

The Glory

Why tremble and weep now,

Whom stars once obeyed?

Come forth to the deep now

And be not afraid.

The Dark One is calling,

I know, for his dreams

Around me are falling

In musical streams.

A diamond is burning

In depths of the Lone

Thy spirit returning

May claim for its throne.

In flame-fringed islands

Its sorrows shall cease,

Absorbed in the silence

And quenched in the peace.

Come lay thy poor head on

My breast where it glows

With love ruby-red on

Thy heart for its woes.

My power I surrender:

To thee it is due:

Come forth, for the splendor

Is waiting for you.

--The End

--November 15, 1895-March 15, 1896

Shadow and Substance

Many are the voices that entreat and warn those who would live the

life of the Magi. It is well they should speak. They are voices

of the wise. But after having listened and pondered, oh, that

someone would arise and shout into our souls how much more fatal

it is to refrain. For we miss to hear the fairy tale of time,

the aeonian chant radiant with light and color which the spirit

prolongs. The warnings are not for those who stay at home, but

for those who adventure abroad. They constitute an invitation to

enter the mysteries. We study and think these things were well

in the happy prime and will be again the years to come. But not

yesterday only or tomorrow--today, today burns in the heart the

fire which made mighty the heroes of old. And in what future will

be born the powers which are not quick in the present? It will

never be a matter of greater ease to enter the path, though we may

well have the stimulus of greater despair. For this and that there

are times and seasons, but for the highest it is always the hour.

The eternal beauty does not pale because its shadow trails over

slime and corruption. It is always present beneath the faded mould

whereon our lives are spent. Still the old mysterious glimmer

from mountain and cave allures, and the golden gleams divide and

descend on us from the haunts of the Gods.