Sunshine bathed
that palace always, and cool winds wandered through its dim corridors,
and in its courts there played fountains of bright water set about
with flowers. When Oisin wished to ride, a steed of fiery but gentle
temper bore him wherever he would through the pleasant land; when he
longed to hear music, there came upon his thought, as though borne on
the wind, crystal notes such as no hand ever struck from the strings
of any harp on earth.
But Oisin's hand now never touched the harp, and the desire of singing
and of making poetry never waked in him, for no one thing seemed so
much better than the rest, where all perfection bloomed and glowed
around him, as to make him long to praise it and to set it apart.
When seven days had passed, he said to Niam, "I would fain go
a-hunting." Niam said, "So be it, dear love; to-morrow we shall take
order for that." Oisin lay long awake that night, thinking of the
sound of Finn's hunting-horn, and of the smell of green boughs when
they kindled them to roast the deer-flesh in Fian ovens in the
wildwood.
So next day Oisin and Niam fared forth on horseback, with their
company of knights and maidens, and dogs leaping and barking with
eagerness for the chase. Anon they came to the forest, and the hunters
with the hounds made a wide circuit on this side and on that, till at
last the loud clamour of the hounds told that a stag was on foot, and
Oisin saw them streaming down an open glen, the stag with its great
antlers laid back and flying like the wind.
Pages:
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231