One noon, among the hills, Angus Ogue lay in sleep. It was a fair place
where he lay, with the heather about him and the bracken with its
September gold in it. On the mountain-slope there was not a juniper tall
enough, not a rock big enough, to give poise to a raven: all of gold
bracken and purple heather it was, with swards of the paler ling. The
one outstanding object was a mountain ash. Midway it grew, and leaned so
that when the sun was in the east above Ben Monach, the light streamed
through the feather-foliage upon the tarn just beneath: so leaned, that
when the sun was on the sea-verge of Ben Mheadhonach in the west, the
glow, lifting upward over leagues of yellow bracken, turned the
rowan-feathers to the colour of brass, and the rowan-berries into
bronze.
The tarn was no more than a boulder-set hollow. It was fed by a spring
that had slipped through the closing granite in a dim far-off age, and
had never ceased to put its cool lips round the little rocky basin of
that heather-pool. At the south end the ling fell over its marge in a
curling wave: under the mountain-ash there was a drift of moss and
fragrant loneroid, as the Gaels call the bog-myrtle.
Here it was, through the tides of noon, that Angus Ogue slept. The god
was a flower there in the sunflood. His hair lay upon the green
loneroid, yellow as fallen daffodils in the grass. Above him was the
unfathomable sea of blue. Not a cloudlet drifted there, nor the
wandering shadow of an eagle soaring from a mountain-eyrie or ascending
in wide gyres of flight from invisible lowlands.
Around him there was the same deep peace. Not a breath stirred the
rowan-leaves, or the feathery shadows these cast upon his white limbs:
not a breath frayed the spires of the heather on the ridges of Ben
Monach: not a breath slid along the aërial pathways to where, on Ben
Mheadhonach, the sea-wind had fallen in a garth of tansies and
moon-daisies, and swooned there is the sun-haze, moveless as a lapsed
wave.
Yet there were eyes to see, for Orchil lifted her gaze from where she
dreamed her triune dream beneath the heather. The goddess ceased from
her weaving at the looms of life and death, and looked broodingly at
Angus Ogue—Angus, the fair god, the ever-young, the lord of love, of
music, of song.
“Is it time that he slept indeed?” she murmured, after a long while,
wherein she felt the sudden blood redden her lips and the pulse in her
quiet veins leap like a caged bird.
But while she still pondered this thing, three old Druids came over the
shoulder of the hill, and advanced slowly to where the Yellow-haired One
lay adream. These, however, she knew to be no mortals, but three of the
ancient gods.
When they came upon Angus Ogue they sought to wake him, but Orchil had
breathed a breath across a granite rock and blown the deep immemorial
age of it upon him, so that even the speech of the elder gods was no
more in his ears than a gnat’s idle rumour.
“Awake,” said Keithoir, and his voice was as the sigh of pine-forests
when the winds surge from the pole.
“Awake,” said Manannan, and his voice was as the hollow booming of the
sea.
“Awake,” said Hesus, and his voice was as the rush of the green world
through space, or as the leaping of the sun.
But Angus Ogue stirred not, and dreamed only that a mighty eagle soared
out of the infinite, and scattered planets and stars as the dust of its
pinions: and that as these planets fell they expanded into vast oceans
whereon a myriad million waves leaped and danced in the sunlight,
singing a laughing song: and that as the stars descended in a silver
rain they spread into innumerable forests, wherein went harping the four
winds of the world, and amidst which the white doves that were his
kisses flitted through the gold and shadow.
“He will awake no more,” murmured Keithoir, and the god of the green
world moved sorrowfully apart, and played upon a reed the passing sweet
song that is to this day in the breath of the wind in the grass, or its
rustle in the leaves, or its sigh in the lapping of reedy waters.
“He will awake no more,” murmured Manannan, and the god of the dividing
seas moved sorrowfully upon his way; and on the hillside there was a
floating echo as of the ocean-music in a shell, mournful with ancient
mournfulness and the sorrow-song of age upon age. The sound of it is in
the ears of the dead, where they move through the glooms of silence: and
it haunts the time-worn shores of the dying world.
“He will awake no more,” murmured Hesus; and the unseen god, whose pulse
is beneath the deepest sea and whose breath is the frosty light of the
stars, moved out of the shadow into the light, and was at one with it,
so that no eyes beheld the radiance which flowered icily in the
firmament and was a flame betwixt the earth and the sun, which was a
glory amid the cloudy veils about the west and a gleam where quiet dews
sustained the green spires of the grass. And as the light lifted and
moved, like a vast tide, there was a rumour as of a starry procession
sweeping through space to the clashing cymbals of dead moons, to the
trumpetings of volcanic worlds, and to the clarions of a thousand suns.
But Angus Ogue had the deep immemorial age of the granite upon him, and
he slept as the dead sleep.
Orchil smiled. “They are old, old, the ancient gods,” she whispered:
“they are so old, they cannot see eternity at rest. For Angus Ogue is
the god of Youth, and he only is eternal and unchanging.”
Then, before she turned once more to her looms of life and death, she
lifted her eyes till her gaze pierced the brown earth and rose above the
green world and was a trouble amid the quietudes of the sky. Thereat the
icy stars gave forth snow, and Angus Ogue was wrapped in a white shroud
that was not as that which melts in the flame of noon. Moreover, Orchil
took one of the shadows of oblivion from her mystic loom, and put it as
a band around Ben Monach where Angus Ogue lay under the mountain-ash by
the tarn.
· · · · ·
A thousand years passed, and when for the thousandth time the wet green
smell of the larches drifted out of Winter into Spring, Orchil lifted
her eyes from where she spun at her looms of life and death. For, over
the shoulder of the hill, came three old Druids, advancing slowly to
where the Yellow-haired One lay adream beneath the snow.
“Awake, Angus,” cried Keithoir.
“Awake, Angus,” cried Manannan.
“Awake, Angus,” cried Hesus.
“Awake, awake,” they cried, “for the world has suddenly grown chill and
old.”
They had the grey grief upon them, when they stood there, face to face
with Silence.
Then Orchil put down the shuttle of mystery wherewith she wove the
threads of her looms, and spoke.
“O ye ancient gods, answer me this. Keithoir, if death were to come to
thee, what would happen?”
“The green world would wither as a dry leaf, and as a dead leaf be blown
idly before the wind that knows not whither it bloweth.”
“Manannan, if death were to come to thee, what would happen?”
“The deep seas would run dry, O Orchil: there would be sand falling in
the place of the dews, and at last the world would reel and fall into
the abyss.”
“Hesus, if death were to come to thee, what would happen?”
“There would be no pulse at the heart of earth, O Orchil, no lift of any
star against any sun. There would be a darkness and a silence.”
Then Orchil laughed.
“And yet,” she said, “when Angus Ogue had the snow-sleep of a thousand
years, none knew it! For a thousand years the pulse of his heart of love
has been the rhythmic beat of the world. For a thousand years the breath
of his nostrils has been as the coming of Spring in the human heart. For
a thousand years the breath of his life has been warm against the lips
of lovers. For a thousand years the memory of these has been sweet
against oblivion. Nay, not one hath dreamed of the deep sleep of Angus
Ogue.”
“Who is he?” cried Keithoir. “Is he older than I, who saw the green
earth born?”
“Who is he?” cried Manannan. “Is he older than I, who saw the first
waters come forth out of the void?”
“Who is he?” cried Hesus. “Is he older than I, who saw the first comet
wander from the starry fold; who saw the moon when it was a flaming sun,
and the sun when it was a sevenfold intolerable flame?”
“He is older!” said Orchil. “He is the soul of the gods.”
And with that she blew a frith across the palm of her hand, and took
away the deep immemorial age of the granite that was upon the Fair God.
“Awake, eternal Spring!” she cried. And Angus awoke, and laughed with
joy; and at his laughing the whole green earth was veiled in a snow of
blossom.
“Arise, eternal Youth!” she cried. And Angus arose and smiled; and at
his smiling the old brown world was clad in dewy green, and everywhere
the beauty of the world was sweet against the eyes of young and old, and
everywhere the pulse of love leaped in beating hearts.
“Go forth, eternal Hope!” she cried. And Angus Ogue passed away on the
sunflood, weaving rainbows as he went, that were fair upon the hills of
age and light within the valleys of sorrow, and were everywhere a wild,
glad joy.
· · · · ·
And that is why, when Orchil weaves dumbly in the dark: and Keithoir is
blind, and dreams among remote hills and by unfrequented shores: and
Manannan lies heavy with deep sleep, with the oceans of the world like
moving shadows above him: and Hesus is grown white and hoar with the
frost of waning stars and weary with the burden of new worlds: that is
why Angus Ogue, the youthful god, is more ancient than they, and is for
ever young. Their period is set. Oblivion is upon the march against
their immemorial time. But in the heart of Angus Ogue blooms the Rose of
Youth, whose beauty is everlasting. Yea, Time is the name of that rose,
and Eternity the beauty and fragrance thereof.
[Illustration: Decorative flying doves]