No More Learning

They have mild, beautiful
faces, but, Aengus, son of Forbis, I fear all these beings, I fear the
people of the Sidhe, and I fear the art which draws them about us. '

'Why,' said the old man, 'do you fear the ancient gods who made the
spears of your father's fathers to be stout in battle, and the little
people who came at night from the depth of the lakes and sang among
the crickets upon their hearths? And in our evil day they still watch
over the loveliness of the earth. But I must tell you why I have fasted
and laboured when others would sink into the sleep of age, for without
your help once more I shall have fasted and laboured to no good end.
When you have done for me this last thing, you may go and build your
cottage and till your fields, and take some girl to wife, and forget
the ancient gods. I have saved all the gold and silver pieces that were
given to me by earls and knights and squires for keeping them from
the evil eye and from the love-weaving enchantments of witches, and
by earls' and knights' and squires' ladies for keeping the people of
the Sidhe from making the udders of their cattle fall dry, and taking
the butter from their churns. I have saved it all for the day when my
work should be at an end, and now that the end is at hand you shall not
lack for gold and silver pieces enough to make strong the roof-tree of
your cottage and to keep cellar and larder full. I have sought through
all my life to find the secret of life. I was not happy in my youth,
for I knew that it would pass; and I was not happy in my manhood, for
I knew that age was coming; and so I gave myself, in youth and manhood
and age, to the search for the Great Secret. I longed for a life
whose abundance would fill centuries, I scorned the life of fourscore
winters. I would be--nay, I _will_ be! --like the Ancient Gods of the
land. I read in my youth, in a Hebrew manuscript I found in a Spanish
monastery, that there is a moment after the Sun has entered the Ram
and before he has passed the Lion, which trembles with the Song of the
Immortal Powers, and that whosoever finds this moment and listens to
the Song shall become like the Immortal Powers themselves; I came back
to Ireland and asked the fairy men, and the cow-doctors, if they knew
when this moment was; but though all had heard of it, there was none
could find the moment upon the hour-glass. So I gave myself to magic,
and spent my life in fasting and 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 at hand. One, who wore a red cap and whose lips
were white with the froth of the new milk, whispered it into my ear.
To-morrow, a little before the close of the first hour after dawn, I
shall find the moment, and then I will go away to a southern land and
build myself a palace of white marble amid orange trees, and gather the
brave and the beautiful about me, and enter into the eternal kingdom
of my youth. But, that I may hear the whole Song, I was told by the
little fellow with the froth of the new milk on his lips, that you must
bring great masses of green boughs and pile them about the door and the
window of my room; and you must put fresh green rushes upon the floor,
and cover the table and the rushes with 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 must come 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 lighted
the lamp which, by some contrivance of the wizard's, gave forth a sweet
odour as of strange flowers, he went into the wood and began cutting
green boughs from the hazels, and great bundles of rushes from the
western border of the isle, where the small rocks gave place to gently
sloping sand and clay. It was nightfall before he had cut enough for
his purpose, and well-nigh midnight before he had carried the last
bundle to its place, and gone back for the roses and the lilies. It was
one of those warm, beautiful nights when everything seems carved of
precious stones. Sleuth Wood away to the south looked as though cut out
of green beryl, and the waters that mirrored them shone like pale opal.
The roses he was gathering were like glowing rubies, and the lilies had
the dull lustre of pearl. Everything had taken upon itself the look of
something imperishable, except a glow-worm, whose faint flame burnt
on steadily among the shadows, moving slowly hither and thither, the
only thing that seemed alive, the only thing that seemed perishable as
mortal hope. The boy gathered a great armful of roses and lilies, and
thrusting the glow-worm among their pearl and ruby, carried them into
the room, where the old man sat in a half-slumber. He laid armful after
armful upon the floor and above the table, and then, gently closing
the door, threw himself upon his bed of rushes, to dream of a peaceful
manhood with his chosen 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 the hour-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, and then sat down to wait until the hour from dawn had gone
by.