In the ancient times the poets told of this Country of the Young, with
its trees bearing fruit and blossom at the one time; its golden apples
that gave lasting life; its armies "that go out in good order, ahead
of their beautiful king, marching among blue spears scattering their
enemies, an army with high looks, rushing, avenging;" before news had
come to Ireland, of the Evangelist's vision of the Tree of Life and
of the "white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow, and a crown
was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer." They
had told of the place "where delight is common, and music" before saintly
Columcille on the night of the Sabbath of rest "reached to the troops
of the archangels and the plain where music has not to be born." But
in later days religion, while offering abundant pictures of an after
world of punishment, "the flagstone of pain," "the cauldron that is
boiling for ever," the fire the least flame of which is "bigger than
fifteen hundred of turf," so that Oisin listening to St. Patrick demands
a familiar weapon, an iron flail, to beat down such familiar terrors,
has left Heaven itself far off, mysterious, intangible, without earthly
similes or foreshadowings. I think it is perhaps because of this that
the country poets of to-day and yesterday have put their dream, their
vision of the Delectable Mountains, of the Land of Promise, into
exaggerated praise of places dear to them. Raftery sees something
beyond the barren Mayo bogs when he tells of that "fine place without
fog falling, a blessed place that the sun shines on, and the wind does
not rise there or anything of the sort," and where as he says in
another poem "logwood and mahogany" grow in company with its wind
twisted beech and storm bent sycamore. Even my own home "sweet Coole
demesne" has been transfigured in songs of the neighbourhood; and a
while ago an old woman asking alms at the door while speaking of a
monastery near Athenry broke into a chant of praise that has in it
perhaps some memory of the Well of Healing at the world's end that
helped the gods to new strength in their great battle at Moytura.
"Three barrels there are with water, and to see the first barrel
boiling it is certain you will get a cure. Water there does be rushing
down; you to stop you could hear it talking; to go there you would
get cured of anything unless it might be the stroke of the Fool."