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The Legends of Saint Patrick by Aubrey de Vere
page 50 of 195 (25%)
Fronted the confine of that forest old.

Then entered they that darkness; and the wood
Closed as a cavern round them. O'er its roof
Leaned roof of cloud, and hissing ran the wind,
And moaned the trunks for centuries hollowed out
Yet stalwart still. There, rooted in the rock,
Stood the huge growths, by us unnamed, that frowned
Perhaps on Partholan, the parricide,
When that first Pagan settler fugitive
Landed, a man foredoomed. Between the stems
The ravening beast now glared, now fled. Red leaves,
The last year's phantoms, rattled here and there.
The oldest wood that ever grew in Eire
Was Fochlut Wood, and gloomiest. Spirits of Ill
Made it their palace, and its labyrinths sowed
With poisons. Many a cave, with horrors thronged
Within it yawned, and many a chasm unseen
Waited the unwary treader. Cry of wolf
Pierced the cold air, and gibbering ghosts were heard;
And o'er the black marsh passed those wandering lights
That lure lost feet. A thousand pathways wound
From gloom to gloom. One only led to light:
That path was sharp with flints.

Then Patrick mused,
"O life of man, how dark a wood art thou!
Erring how many track thee till Despair,
Sad host, receives them in his crypt-like porch
At nightfall." Mute he paced. The brethren feared;
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