by W. B. Yeats
THE HEART OF THE SPRING.
A very old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of abird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-coveredisle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-faced boyof seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows dipping forflies in the still water. The old man was dressed in threadbare bluevelvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue cap, and had about hisneck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two, and half hidden by trees,was a little monastery. It had been burned down a long while before bysacrilegious men of the Queen's party, but had been roofed anew withrushes by the boy, that the old man might find shelter in his last days.He had not set his spade, however, into the garden about it, and thelilies and the roses of the monks had spread out until their confusedluxuriancy met and mingled with the narrowing circle of the fern. Beyondthe lilies and the roses the ferns were so deep that a child walkingamong them would be hidden from sight, even though he stood upon histoes; and beyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak trees.
'Master,' said the boy, 'this long fasting, and the labour of beckoningafter nightfall with your rod of quicken wood to the beings who dwellin the waters and among the hazels and oak-trees, is too much for yourstrength. Rest from all this labour for a little, for your hand seemedmore heavy upon my shoulder and your feet less steady under you to-daythan I have known them. Men say that you are older than the eagles,and yet you will not seek the rest that belongs to age.' He spoke in aneager, impulsive way, as though his heart were in the words and thoughtsof the moment; and the old man answered slowly and deliberately, asthough his heart were in distant days and distant deeds.
'I will tell you why I have not been able to rest,' he said. 'It isright that you should know, for you have served me faithfully these fiveyears and more, and even with affection, taking away thereby a little ofthe doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise. Now, too, thatthe end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is at hand, it is themore needful for you to have this knowledge.'
'Master, do not think that I would question you. It is for me to keepthe fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong, lestthe wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take the heavybooks from the shelves, and to lift from its corner the great paintedroll with the names of the Sidhe, and to possess the while an incuriousand reverent heart, for right well I know that God has made out of Hisabundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives, and to do thesethings is my wisdom.'
'You are afraid,' said the old man, and his eyes shone with a momentaryanger.
'Sometimes at night,' said the boy, 'when you are reading, with therod of quicken wood in your hand, I look out of the door and see, nowa great grey man driving swine among the hazels, and now many littlepeople in red caps who come out of the lake driving little white cowsbefore them. I do not fear these little people so much as the grey man;for, when they come near the house, they milk the cows, and they drinkthe frothing milk, and begin to dance; and I know there is good in theheart that loves dancing; but I fear them for all that. And I fear thetall white-armed ladies who come out of the air, and move slowly hitherand thither, crowning themselves with the roses or with the lilies, andshaking about their living hair, which moves, for so I have heard themtell each other, with the motion of their thoughts, now spreading outand now gathering close to their heads. They have mild, beautiful faces,but, Aengus, son of Forbis, I fear all these beings, I fear the peopleof Sidhe, and I fear the art which draws them about us.'
'Why,' said the old man, 'do you fear the ancient gods who made thespears of your father's fathers to be stout in battle, and the littlepeople who came at night from the depth of the lakes and sang among thecrickets upon their hearths? And in our evil day they still watch overthe loveliness of the earth. But I must tell you why I have fasted andlaboured when others would sink into the sleep of age, for without yourhelp once more I shall have fasted and laboured to no good end. When youhave done for me this last thing, you may go and build your cottage andtill your fields, and take some girl to wife, and forget the ancientgods. I have saved all the gold and silver pieces that were given to meby earls and knights and squires for keeping them from the evil eyeand from the love-weaving enchantments of witches, and by earls' andknights' and squires' ladies for keeping the people of the Sidhe frommaking the udders of their cattle fall dry, and taking the butter fromtheir churns. I have saved it all for the day when my work should be atan end, and now that the end is at hand you shall not lack for gold andsilver pieces enough to make strong the roof-tree of your cottage and tokeep cellar and larder full. I have sought through all my life to findthe secret of life. I was not happy in my youth, for I knew that itwould pass; and I was not happy in my manhood, for I knew that agewas coming; and so I gave myself, in youth and manhood and age, to thesearch for the Great Secret. I longed for a life whose abundancewould fill centuries, I scorned the life of fourscore winters. I wouldbe--nay, I _will_ be!--like the Ancient Gods of the land. I read in myyouth, in a Hebrew manuscript I found in a Spanish monastery, that thereis a moment after the Sun has entered the Ram and before he has passedthe Lion, which trembles with the Song of the Immortal Powers, and thatwhosoever finds this moment and listens to the Song shall become likethe Immortal Powers themselves; I came back to Ireland and asked thefairy men, and the cow-doctors, if they knew when this moment was; butthough all had heard of it, there was none could find the moment uponthe hour-glass. So I gave myself to magic, and spent my life in fastingand in labour that I might bring the Gods and the Fairies to my side;and now at last one of the Fairies has told me that the moment is athand. One, who wore a red cap and whose lips were white with the frothof the new milk, whispered it into my ear. Tomorrow, a little before theclose of the first hour after dawn, I shall find the moment, and thenI will go away to a southern land and build myself a palace of whitemarble amid orange trees, and gather the brave and the beautiful aboutme, and enter into the eternal kingdom of my youth. But, that I may hearthe whole Song, I was told by the little fellow with the froth of thenew milk on his lips, that you must bring great masses of green boughsand pile them about the door and the window of my room; and you must putfresh green rushes upon the floor, and cover the table and the rusheswith the roses and the lilies of the monks. You must do this to-night,and in the morning at the end of the first hour after dawn, you mustcome and find me.'
'Will you be quite young then?' said the boy.
'I will be as young then as you are, but now I am still old and tired,and you must help me to my chair and to my books.'
When the boy had left Aengus son of Forbis in his room, and had lightedthe lamp which, by some contrivance of the wizard's, gave forth a sweetodour as of strange flowers, he went into the wood and began cuttinggreen boughs from the hazels, and great bundles of rushes from thewestern border of the isle, where the small rocks gave place to gentlysloping sand and clay. It was nightfall before he had cut enough for hispurpose, and well-nigh midnight before he had carried the last bundleto its place, and gone back for the roses and the lilies. It was one ofthose warm, beautiful nights when everything seems carved of preciousstones. Sleuth Wood away to the south looked as though cut out of greenberyl, and the waters that mirrored them shone like pale opal. The roseshe was gathering were like glowing rubies, and the lilies had the dulllustre of pearl. Everything had taken upon itself the look of somethingimperishable, except a glow-worm, whose faint flame burnt on steadilyamong the shadows, moving slowly hither and thither, the only thing thatseemed alive, the only thing that seemed perishable as mortal hope.The boy gathered a great armful of roses and lilies, and thrusting theglow-worm among their pearl and ruby, carried them into the room, wherethe old man sat in a half-slumber. He laid armful after armful uponthe floor and above the table, and then, gently closing the door, threwhimself upon his bed of rushes, to dream of a peaceful manhood with hischosen wife at his side, and the laughter of children in his ears.At dawn he rose, and went down
to the edge of the lake, taking thehour-glass with him. He put some bread and a flask of wine in the boat,that his master might not lack food at the outset of his journey, andthen sat down to wait until the hour from dawn had gone by. Graduallythe birds began to sing, and when the last grains of sand were falling,everything suddenly seemed to overflow with their music. It was themost beautiful and living moment of the year; one could listen to thespring's heart beating in it. He got up and went to find his master.The green boughs filled the door, and he had to make a way through them.When he entered the room the sunlight was falling in flickering circleson floor and walls and table, and everything was full of soft greenshadows. But the old man sat clasping a mass of roses and lilies in hisarms, and with his head sunk upon his breast. On the table, at his lefthand, was a leathern wallet full of gold and silver pieces, as for ajourney, and at his right hand was a long staff. The boy touched him andhe did not move. He lifted the hands but they were quite cold, and theyfell heavily.
'It were better for him,' said the lad, 'to have told his beads andsaid his prayers like another, and not to have spent his days in seekingamongst the Immortal Powers what he could have found in his own deedsand days had he willed. Ah, yes, it were better to have said his prayersand kissed his beads!' He looked at the threadbare blue velvet, andhe saw it was covered with the pollen of the flowers, and while he waslooking at it a thrush, who had alighted among the boughs that werepiled against the window, began to sing.