‘I hear my soul drop down into decay, And Mananan’s dark tower, stone by stone, Gather sea-slime and fall the seaward way, And the moon goad the waters night and day, That all be overthrown. ‘But till the moon has taken all, I wage War on the mightiest men under the skies, And they have fallen or fled, age after age: Light is man’s love, and lighter is man’s rage; His purpose drifts and dies.’ And then lost Niamh murmured, ‘Love, we go To the Island of Forgetfulness, for lo! The Islands of Dancing and of Victories Are empty of all power.’ ‘And which of these Is the Island of Content?’ ‘None know,’ she said; And on my bosom laid her weeping head. BOOK III THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN FLED foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke, High as the saddle girth, covering away from our glances the tide; And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance broke; The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed. I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair, And never a song sang Niamh, and over my finger-tips Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold air, And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips. Were we days long or hours long in riding, when rolled in a grisly peace, An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak? And we stood on a sea’s edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed fleece Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke. And we rode on the plains of the sea’s edge; the sea’s edge barren and gray, Gray sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees, Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas. But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark; Dropping; a murmurous dropping; old silence and that one sound; For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark: Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground. And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night, For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun, Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light, And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one. Till the horse gave a whinny; for, cumbrous with stems of the hazel and oak, A valley flowed down from his hoofs, and there in the long grass lay, Under the starlight and shadow, a monstrous slumbering folk, Their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way.