THE ISLE OF THE HAPPY

(From the Early Irish)

Once when Bran, son of Feval, was with his warriors in his royal fort,
they suddenly saw a woman in strange raiment upon the floor of the
house. No one knew whence she had come or how she had entered, for the
ramparts were closed. Then she sang these quatrains of Erin, the Isle of
the Happy, to Bran while all the host were listening:


A branch I bear from Evin's apple-trees
Whose shape agrees with Evin's orchard spray;
Yet never could her branches best belauded
Such crystal-gauded bud and bloom display.

There is a distant Isle, deep sunk in shadows,
Sea-horses round its meadows flash and flee;
Full fair the course, white-swelling waves enfold it,
Four pedestals uphold it o'er the sea.

White the bronze pillars that this Fairy Curragh,[A]
The Centuries thorough, glimmering uphold.
Through all the World the fairest land of any
Is this whereon the many blooms unfold.

And in its midst an Ancient Tree forth flowers,