Page:Poet Lore, volume 34, 1923.djvu/457

 days, though it is hard to find it now!

Boy.—Why wouldn't it be hard looking for it, out of all the rest? It is Hazel trees are hanging over every other well you would find!

Blind Singer.—That is the trouble. (Rousing again.) So it is the beds of the Seven Rivers I am searching for out of every one of these wells.

Boy.—It is a queer thing the way you talk! What good would the Seven Rivers do you,—and they dried up?

Blind Singer.—It is not dried up they are truly. There are those that can find them, and it is those that can get the wisdom that is in the waters of them, and they that keep it alive in the heart of Ireland.

Boy (After eyeing the silently a moment).—Isn't it an odd man you are! I do not understand you at all.

Blind Man.—How should it be that a young lad should understand me entirely,—and I an old man nearly,—wandering and troubled, with sorrows in my heart and I hunting for songs; without a place to lay my head,—without company. It is to the birds I must talk; it is by the foot of a dark mound I must lie waiting for the green fire out of it to comfort me; it is quicken berries I must find to eat for there is no other food is a satisfaction to me now that I am peevish with the time too long that I am in a dark world. (He pauses.) And it is the music of the Seven Rivers I must hear and know it is putting joy and youth into the hearts of the People of Ireland once more,—before I go to sleep!

Boy.—It is a hard life you have, surely! (He looks perplexed still at the ) And is it not sleeping you are at all without hearing the Seven Rivers, and you hunting them all over Ireland and never finding them?

Blind Singer (A little as if in a dream, and sadly).—Long ago I found them and I heard them. But I have been away a great time. (He brightens.) I found them when I was hunting on the hills in a great company (lower tone)—and I heard them when I slept under the trees that tossed over me at night.

Boy.—Was it a great hunter you were?

Blind Singer (Tosses back his head and laughs joyfully and loud).—Ay, it was a great hunter I was, and I a young man, with hounds and hunting horns, going after the deer and singing strong songs by the fires in the dusk! (With increased exhilaration he goes on)—Ay, I sang!—and it a great joy to me. Great songs that there is none to listen to now. In the great fights I sang—