to love but only to be loved, and there is no blood in their hearts
or in their bodies until it flows through them from a kiss, and their
life is but for a moment. All these are unhappy, but I am the
unhappiest of all, for I am Dervadilla, and this is Dermot, and it
was our sin brought the Norman into Ireland. And the curses of all
the generations are upon us, and none are punished as we are
punished. It was but the blossom of the man and of the woman we loved
in one another, the dying beauty of the dust and not the everlasting
beauty. When we died there was no lasting unbreakable quiet about us,
and the bitterness of the battles we brought into Ireland turned to
our own punishment. We go wandering together for ever, but Dermot
that was my lover sees me always as a body that has been a long time
in the ground, and I know that is the way he sees me. Ask me more,
ask me more, for all the years have left their wisdom in my heart,
and no one has listened to me for seven hundred years.'

A great terror had fallen upon Hanrahan, and lifting his arms above
his head he screamed out loud three times, and the cattle in the
valley lifted their heads and lowed, and the birds in the wood at the
edge of the mountain awaked out of their sleep and fluttered through
the trembling leaves. But a little below the edge of the rock, the
troop of rose leaves still fluttered in the air, for the gateway of
Eternity had opened and shut again in one beat of the heart.




THE DEATH OF HANRAHAN.