Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/69

54 in his covert woke in fear, and shook the dew from his fell, and fled like a hunted thing through the darkness. But he knew not the meaning of these, the signs and the voices of sorrow.

‘I am coming, O sweet fountains, where the stream has learned its song,’ so he sang. ‘And for ever through the ages I shall dream through music here.’ But they sighed, the ancient solitudes, for they saw and knew what eye of man had never looked upon, nor the heart of man had known. So they made the heather deeper for his coming, and they made the grasses softer for his bed. And the winds drew down near Moruisg of the waters, stirring the stream to music, as a minstrel sweeps his strings. And the ripples bore it all down to him where he sat beside the sea—like bits of broken dreams and broken song. So, while the waves sighed sunwards, great weariness and yearning came across his soul. ‘I am tired, O streamlet. I would learn your song, and sleep.’ Softly the shadows sent their echoes, ‘Sleep !’

So he rose, and sought the heights, seeking the beginnings of the music, yearning for the fountain where the song had birth. ‘Then let me slumber. I am weary here!’

He left the sea behind him, till its cry sounded faint and far away, though he turned sometimes and listened to its calling, calling to him up the glen. And in the dark he lay down in the bracken, while the shadows and the stars kept watch. But still he found not the fountainhead of song in that far land. Till at last, full weary, in a corrie upon Moruisg of the waters, he slept. And the air grew still, and saddened into silence; and the sky grew dark, and drew near the world, as though to listen to the breathing of the glens. And no sound broke on the night; no bird stirred in its nest—no deer in the heather. No sob of wind mourned among the pines. Only Silence, like Slumber asleep, fell over all. And the waters from the heart of Moruisg stole softly, without a ripple, through the moss at the dreamer’s feet.

It was only God that knew his dreamings, and the sad hills know what God knows, hence their sadness in the