The Ancient God's Lament

" I want you...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-nOg 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 eye can bridge them, not 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, imperceptibly as a feather on the wind reaches the ground on a hundred starts; not with the compass and the chart, but by the breath of the Almighty which blows from all quarters without care and without ceasing. Night and day it urges from the outside to the inside. It gathers ever to the centre. From the far without to the deep within, trembling from the body to the soul until the head of a woman and the heart of a man are filled with the Divine Imagination. Hymen, Hymenaea! I sing to the ears that are stopped, the eyes that are sealed and the minds that do not labour. Sweetly I sing on the hill-side. The blind shall look within and not without; the deaf shall hearken to the murmur of their wisdom of sweetness; the thoughtless shall think without effort as the lightning flashes, that the hand of Innocence may reach to the stars, and the feet of Adoration may dance to the Father of Joy and the laugh of Happiness be answered by the Voice of Benediction..."

The Crock of Gold - James Stephens 1912

The Dance Has Begun Lightly

"Come to us, ye who do not know where ye are - ye who live among strangers in the houses of dismay and self-righteousness. Poor, awkward ones! How bewildered and bedevilled ye go! Amazed ye look and do not comprehend, for your eyes are set upon a star and your feet move in the blessed kingdoms of the Shee. Innocents! in what prisons are ye flung? To what lowliness are ye bowed? How are ye ground between the laws and the customs? The dark people of the Fomor have ye in thrall; and upon your minds they have fastened a band of lead, your hearts are hung with iron, and about your loins a cincture of brass impressed, woeful! believe it, that the sun does shine, the flowers grow, and the birds sing pleasantly in the trees. The free winds are everywhere, the water tumbles on the hill, the eagle calls aloud through the solitude, and his mate comes speedily. The bees are gathering honey in the sunlight, the midges dance together, and the great bull bellows across the river. The crow says a word to his brethren, and the wren snuggles her young in the hedge... Come to us, ye lovers of life and happiness. Hold out thy hand - a brother shall seize it from afar. Leave the plough and the cart for a little time: put aside the needle and the awl! - Is leather thy brother, O man?... Come away! come away! from the loom and the desk, from the place where raiment is sold and the place where it is sewn in darkness: O bad treachery! Is it for joy you sit in the broker's den, thou pale man? Has the attorney enchanted thee?... Come away! for the dance has begun lightly , the wind is sounding over the hill, the sun laughs down into the valley, and the sea leaps upon the shingle, panting for joy, dancing, dancing, dancing for joy..."

...They swept through the goat tracks and the little boreens and the curving roads. Down to the city they went dancing and singing; among the streets and the shops telling their sunny tale; not heeding the malignant eyes and the cold brows as the sons of Balor looked sidewards. And they took the Philosopher from his prison, even the Intellect of Man they took from the hands of the doctors and lawyers, from the sly priests, from the professors whose mouths are gorged with sawdust, and the merchants who sell blades of grass - the awful people of the Fomor... and then they returned again, dancing and singing, to the country of the gods...

The Crock of Gold - James Stephens 1912

The Spacegoats - In Celebration

The Road to Fairyland

The Fairy Glen - Isle of Skye
Do you seek the road to Fairyland? I'll tell: it's easy quite. Wait till a yellow moon gets up o'er purple seas by night, and glides a shining pathway that is sparkling diamond bright. Then, if no evil power be nigh to thwart you, out of spite, and if you know the very words to cast a spell of might, you get upon a thistledown, and, if the breeze is right, you sail away to Fairyland along this track of light.
Ernest Thompson Seton

...With wonder, with delight, the daughter of Murrachu watched the hosting of the Shee. Sometimes her eyes were dazzled as a jewelled forehead blazed in the sun, or a shoulder-torque of broad gold flamed like a torch. On fair hair and dark the sun gleamed: white arms tossed and glanced a moment and sank and reappeared. The eyes of those who did not hesitate nor compute looked into her eyes, not appraising, not questioning, but mild and unafraid. The voices of free people spoke in her ears and the laughter of happy hearts, unthoughtful of sin or shame, released from the hard bondage of selfhood. For these people, though many, were one. Each spoke to the other as to himself, without reservation or subterfuge. They moved freely each in his personal whim, and they moved also with the unity of one being: for when they shouted to the Mother of the gods they shouted with one voice, and they bowed to her as one man bows. Through the many minds there went also one mind, correcting, commanding, so that in a moment the itnerchangeable and fluid became locked, and organic with a simultaneous understanding, a collective action - which was freedom...

... In a little they reached the grass land and the dance began. Hand sought for hand, feet moved companionably as thought they loved each other; quietly intimate they tripped without faltering, and, then, the loud song arose - they dang to the lovers of gaiety and peace, long defrauded - ...

The Crock of Gold - James Stephens 1912

The Faeiry Dance

...And one came also to whom the bosts shouted with mighty love, wven the Serene One, Dana, the Mother of the gods, steadfast forever. Her breath is on the morning, her smile is summer. From her hand the birds of the air take their food. The mild ox is her friend, and the wolf trotos by her freindly side; atr her voice the daisy peeps from her cave and the nettle couches his lance. The rose arrays herself in innocence, scattering abroad her sweetness with the dew, and the oak tree laughs to her in the air. Tous Beautiful! the lambs follow thy footsteps, they crop thy bounty in the meadows and are not thwarted: the weary men cling to thy bosom everlasting. Through thee all voices come to us, even the Divine Pormise and the breath of the Almighty from afar laden with goodness.

With wonder, with delight, the daughter of Murrachu watched the hosting of the Shee. Sometimes her eyes were dazzled as a jewelled forenead blazed in the sun, or a shoulder-torque of broad gold flamed like a torch. On fair hair and dark the sun gleamed: white arms tossed and glanced a moment and sank and reappeared. The eyes of those who did not hesitate nor compute looked into her eyes, not appraising, not questioning, but mild and unafraid. The voices of free people spoke in her ears and the laughter of happy hearts, unthoughtful of sin or shame, released from the hard bondage of selfhood. For these people, though many, were one. Each spoke to the other as to himself, without reservation or subterfuge. They moved freely each in his personal whim, and they moved also with the unity of one being: for when they shouted tot he Moth of the gods thye shouted with one voice, and they bowed to her as one man bows. Through the many minds there went also one mind, correcting, commanding, so that in a moment the interchangeable and fluid became locked, and orgnaic with a simultaneous understanding, a collective action - which was freedom...

Here there wsa no green thing growing; a carpet of brown turf soread to the edge of sight on the sloping plain and way to where another mountain soared in the air. They came to this and descended. In the distance, groves fo trees could be seen, and, very far away, the roofs and towers and spires of the Town of the Ford of Hurdles, and the little roads that wandered everywhere; but on this height there was only prickly furze growing softly in the sunlight; the bee droned his loud song, the birds flew and sang occasionally, and the little stredams grew heavy with their falling waters. A little further and the bushes were green and heautiful, waving their gentle leaves in the quietude, and beyond again, wrapped in sunshine and peace, the trees looked on the world from their calm heights, having no complaint to make of anything.

In a little they reached the grass land and the dance began. Hand sought for hand, feet moved companionably as thought they loved each other; quietly intimate they tripped without faltering, and, then, the loud song arose - they sang to the lvoers of gaiety and peace, long defrauded -...

The Crock of Gold - James Stephens 1912

Love

...she had discovered that happiness is not laughter or satisfaction, and that no person can be happy for themselves alone. So she had come to understand the terrible sadness of the gods, and why Angus wept in secret; for often in the night she had heard him weeping, and she knew that his tears were for those others who were unhappy, and that he could not be comforted while there was a woeful person or an evil deed hiding in the world. Her own happiness also had become infected with this alien misery, until she knew that nothing was alien to her, and that in truth all persons and all things were her brothers and sisters and that they were living and dying in distress; and at the last she knew that there was not any man but mankind, nor any human being but only humanity. Never again could the gratification of a desire give her pleasure, for her sense of oneness was destroyed - she was not an individual only; she was also part of a mighty organism ordained, through whatever stress, to achieve its oneness, and this great being was threefold, comprising in its mighty units God and Man and Nature - the immortal trinity. The duty of life is the sacrifice of self: it is to renounce the little ego that the mighty ego may be freed; and, knowing this, she found at last that she knew Happiness, that divine discontent which cannot rest nor be at ease until its bourne is attained and the knowledge of a man is added to the gaiety of a child. Angus had told her that beyond this there lay the great ecstasy which is Love and God and the beginning and the end of all things; for every thing must come from the Liberty into the Bondage, that it may return again to the Liberty, comprehending all things and fitted for that fiery enjoyment. This cannot be until there are no more fools living, for until the last fool has grown wise wisdom will totter and freedom will still be invisible. Growth is not by years but by multitudes, and until there is a common eye no one person can see God, for the eye of all nature will scarcely be great enough to look upon that majesty. We shall greet Happiness by multitudes, but we can only greet Him by starry systems and a universal love...

The Crock of Gold, James Stephens 1912

The Very Apex of Sweetness

...when suddenly, from without , a chorus of birds burst into joyous singing. Limpid and liquid cadenzas, mellow flutings, and the sweet treble of infancy met and danced and piped in the airy surroundings. A round, soft tenderness of song rose and fell, broadened and soared, and then the high flight was snatched, eddied a moment, and was borne away to a more slender and wonderful loftiness, until, from afar, that thriling song turned on the very apex of sweetness, dipped steeply and flashed its joyous return to the exultations of its mates below, rolling an ecstasy of song which for one moment gladdened the whole world and the sad people who moved thereon...

The Crock of Gold, James Stephens 1912

The Depths are Equal to the Heigths

...I want you to want me. I want you to forget right and wrong; to be as happy as the beasts, as careless as the flowers and the birds. To live to the depths of your nature as well as to the heights. Truly there are stars in the heights and they will be a garland for your forehead. But the depths are equal to the heights. Wondrous deep are the depths, very fertile is the lowest deep. There are stars there also , brighter than the stars on high. The name of the heights is Wisdom and the name of the depths is Love. How shall they come together and be fruitful if you do not plunge deeply and fearlessly? Wisdom is the spirit and the wings of the spirit, Love is the shaggy beast that goes down. Gallantly he dives, below thought, beyond Wisdom, to rise again as high above these as he had first descended. Wisdom is righteous and clean, but Love is unclean and holy. I sing of the beast and the descent: the great unclean purging itself in fire: the thought that is not born in the measure or the ice of the head, but in the feet and the hotblood and the pulse of fury. The Crown of Life is not lodged in the sun: the wise gods have buried it deeply where the thoughtful will not find it, nor the good: but the Gay Ones, the Adventurous Ones, the Careless Plungers, they will bring it to the wise and astonish them. All things are seen in the light – How shall we value that which is easy to see? But the precious things which are hidden, they will be beautiful with our sorrow: they will be noble because of our desire for them…

The Crock of Gold - James Stephens 1912

The End of the Road

This is a thing is true,
Everything comes to an end:
The loving of me and you,
The walking of friend and friend

Shall I weep the beauty I knew,
Or the greatness gathered away
Or the truth that is only true,
As the things that a man will say?

The child and the mother will die,
The wife and the husband sever,
The sun will go out of the sky,
And the rain will be falling for ever.

For ever until the waves rear
To the skies with a terrible tune,
And cover the earth and air,
And climb up the beach of the moon.

They go, for all things must end,
And this is true as I say –
A friend will be leaving a friend,
And a man will be going away.

James Stephens The Hill of Visions
Maunsel and Company Ltd, 1912

The Spalpeen

Looking on the rounded sky
From the Hill of Vision, I
Saw him striding here and there
Sowing seeds upon the air,
And he told the name of these,
Days and Years and Centuries.

Then a seed to me he threw
Saying, ‘tis a gift of you,
The best of all the seeds that be
This is the seed of mystery,
And its name is Death but no
Other tree can blossom so.

It will top the clouds and run
Branches up into the sun:
Fruit and leaf and branch and stem
Will grow far too high for them,
The immortals, who will cry
We are tired and cannot die.

“ Fear of the Gods” will be its name,
it will cover up their fame;
and beneath its shade will go
mighty mortals to and fro
who will die and live and be
eager through eternity.

James Stephens The Hill of Visions
Maunsel and Company Ltd, 1912

Through The Circle Of My Eye

Everything that I can spy through the circle of my eye, everything that I can see has been woven out of me; I have sown the stars, and threw clouds of morning and of eve up into the vacant blue; everything that I perceive, sun and sea and mountain high, all are moulded by my eye: closing it, what shall I find? …


James Stephens The Hill of Visions
Maunsel and Company Ltd, 1912