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 pa.s.sed; 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 circ.u.mstance 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 n.o.bler 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 G.o.d; 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 G.o.d; 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 c.o.c.kney 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 gra.s.sy 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 G.o.ds 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 mult.i.tudes; they swayed in starry cl.u.s.ters dripping with light, singing a melody caught from the spheres of the G.o.ds, 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 a.s.sembled to light the yearly fire in honor of the Sun-G.o.d, 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 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 a.s.sail 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."