The Eternal has made love blind,
for it is not by science, but by intuition alone, that he may come
to his beloved; but desire, which is science, has many eyes and
sees so vastly that he passes his love in the press, saying there
is no love, and he propagates miserably on his own delusions. The
finger-tips are guided by God, but the devil looks through the
eyes of all creatures so that they may wander in the errors of
reason and justify themselves of their wanderings. The desire of a
man shall be Beauty, but he has fashioned a slave in his mind and
called it Virtue. The desire of a woman shall be Wisdom, but she
has formed a beast in her blood and called it Courage: but the real
virtue is courage, and the real courage is liberty, and the real
liberty is wisdom, and Wisdom is the son of Thought and Intuition;
and his names also are Innocence and Adoration and Happiness.”
When Angus Óg had said these words he ceased, and for a time there
was silence in the little cave. Caitilin had covered her face with
her hands and would not look at him, but Pan drew the girl closer
to his side and peered sideways, laughing at Angus.
“Has the time yet come for the girl to judge between us?” said he.
“Daughter of Murrachu,” said Angus Óg, “will you come away with me
from this place?”
Caitilin then looked at the god in great distress. “I do not know
what to do,” said she. “Why do you both want me? I have given
myself to Pan, and his arms are about me.”
“I want you,” said Angus Óg, “because the world has forgotten me.
In all my nation there is no remembrance of me. I, wandering on
the hills of my country, am lonely indeed. I am the desolate god
forbidden to utter my happy laughter. I hide the silver of my
speech and the gold of my merriment. I live in the holes of the
rocks and the dark caves of the sea. I weep in the morning because
I may not laugh, and in the evening I go abroad and am not happy.
Where I have kissed a bird has flown; where I have trod a flower
has sprung. But Thought has snared my birds in his nets and sold
them in the market-places. Who will deliver me from Thought, from
the base holiness of Intellect, the maker of chains and traps? Who
will save me from the holy impurity of Emotion, whose daughters are
Envy and Jealousy and Hatred, who plucks my flowers to ornament
her lusts and my little leaves to shrivel on the breasts of
infamy? Lo, I am sealed in the caves of nonentity until the head
and the heart shall come together in fruitfulness, until Thought
has wept for Love, and Emotion has purified herself to meet her
lover. Tir-na-nÓg is the heart of a man and the head of a woman.
Widely they are separated. Self-centred they stand, and between
them the seas of space are flooding desolately. No voice can shout
across those shores. No eye can bridge them, nor any desire bring
them together until the blind god shall find them on the wavering
stream—not as an arrow searches straightly from a bow, but gently,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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