“The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are adverse to sitting down to dine thirteen at a table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, of seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tale. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, although even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt, unlike any other, is a visionary without scratching.”

“I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or grotesque, and some wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away....the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them.”

“CUCHULAIN’S FIGHT WITH THE SEAA MAN came slowly from the setting sun,To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun,And said, ‘I am that swineherd whom you bidGo watch the road between the wood and tide,But now I have no need to watch it more.’Then Emer cast the web upon the floor,And raising arms all raddled with the dye,Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry.That swineherd stared upon her face and said,‘No man alive, no man among the dead,Has won the gold his cars of battle bring.’‘But if your master comes home triumphingWhy must you blench and shake from foot to crown?’Thereon he shook the more and cast him downUpon the web-heaped floor, and cried his word:‘With him is one sweet-throated like a bird.’‘You dare me to my face,’ and thereuponShe smote with raddled fist, and where her sonHerded the cattle came with stumbling feet,And cried with angry voice, ’It is not meetTo idle life away, a common herd.’‘I have long waited, mother, for that word:But wherefore now?’‘There is a man to die;You have the heaviest arm under the sky.’‘Whether under its daylight or its starsMy father stands amid his battle-cars.’‘But you have grown to be the taller man.’‘Yet somewhere under starlight or the sunMy father stands.’‘Aged, worn out with warsOn foot, on horseback or in battle-cars.’‘I only ask what way my journey lies,For He who made you bitter made you wise.’‘The Red Branch camp in a great companyBetween wood’s rim and the horses of the sea.Go there, and light a camp-fire at wood’s rim;But tell your name and lineage to himWhose blade compels, and wait till they have foundSome feasting man that the same oath has bound.’Among those feasting men Cuchulain dwelt,And his young sweetheart close beside him knelt,Stared on the mournful wonder of his eyes,Even as Spring upon the ancient skies,And pondered on the glory of his days;And all around the harp-string told his praise,And Conchubar, the Red Branch king of kings,With his own fingers touched the brazen strings.At last Cuchulain spake, ‘Some man has madeHis evening fire amid the leafy shade.I have often heard him singing to and fro,I have often heard the sweet sound of his bow.Seek out what man he is.’One went and came.‘He bade me let all know he gives his nameAt the sword-point, and waits till we have foundSome feasting man that the same oath has bound.’Cuchulain cried, ‘I am the only manOf all this host so bound from childhood on.After short fighting in the leafy shade,He spake to the young man, ’Is there no maidWho loves you, no white arms to wrap you round,Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground,That you have come and dared me to my face?’‘The dooms of men are in God’s hidden place,’‘Your head a while seemed like a woman’s headThat I loved once.’Again the fighting sped,But now the war-rage in Cuchulain woke,And through that new blade’s guard the old blade broke,And pierced him.‘Speak before your breath is done.’‘Cuchulain I, mighty Cuchulain’s son.’‘I put you from your pain. I can no more.’While day its burden on to evening bore,With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed;Then Conchubar sent that sweet-throated maid,And she, to win him, his grey hair caressed;In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast.Then Conchubar, the subtlest of all men,Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten,Spake thus: ‘Cuchulain will dwell there and broodFor three days more in dreadful quietude,And then arise, and raving slay us all.Chaunt in his ear delusions magical,That he may fight the horses of the sea.’The Druids took them to their mystery,And chaunted for three days.Cuchulain stirred,Stared on the horses of the sea, and heardThe cars of battle and his own name cried;And fought with the invulnerable tide.”

“THE HOST is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare; Caolte tossing his burning hair And Niamh calling Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream. The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam, Our arms are waving, our lips are apart; And if any gaze on our rushing band, We come between him and the deed of his hand, We come between him and the hope of his heart. The host is rushing ’twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair? Caolte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away”

“The Cat and the Moon The cat went here and thereAnd the moon spun round like a top,And the nearest kin of the moon,The creeping cat, looked up.Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,For, wander and wail as he would,The pure cold light in the skyTroubled his animal blood.Minnaloushe runs in the grassLifting his delicate feet.Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?When two close kindred meet,What better than call a dance?Maybe the moon may learn,Tired of that courtly fashion,A new dance turn.Minnaloushe creeps through the grassFrom moonlit place to place,The sacred moon overheadHas taken a new phase.Does Minnaloushe know that his pupilsWill pass from change to change,And that from round to crescent,From crescent to round they range?Minnaloushe creeps through the grassAlone, important and wise,And lifts to the changing moonHis changing eyes.”

“When I think of life as struggle with the Daimon who would ever set us to the hardest work among those not impossible, I understand why there is a deep enmity between a man and his destiny, and why a man loves nothing but his destiny.”

“THE ROSE OF THE WORLDWHO dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,Mournful that no new wonder may betide,Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,And Usna’s children died.We and the labouring world are passing by:Amid men’s souls, that waver and give placeLike the pale waters in their wintry race,Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,Lives on this lonely face.Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:Before you were, or any hearts to beat,Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;He made the world to be a grassy roadBefore her wandering feet.”