In the symbolic expression of our spiritual life the eagle has
become a dove brooding peace. Oh, that it might rebecome the eagle
and take to the upper airs!

A generosity and greatness of spirit are in the heroes of the Red
Branch, and out of their strength grows a bloom of beauty never
fully revealed until Lady Gregory compiled these tales. As we
read our eyes are dazzled by strange graces of color flowing over the
pages: everywhere there is mystery and magnificence. Procession's
pass by in Druid ritual, kings and queens, and harpers who look like
kings. When the wind passes over them and stirs their garments a
sweetness comes over the teller of the tale, who felt that delight
in draperies blown over shapely forms which is the inspiration of
the Winged Victory and many Greek marbles. The bards will not have
the hands of those proud people touch anything which is not beautiful.
"It was a beautiful chessboard they had, all of white bronze, and
the chessmen of gold and silver, and a candlestick of precious stones
lighting it." The wasting of time has spared us a few things to
show that this rare and intricate metal work was not a myth, and
we are forced by an inexorable logic to accept as mainly true the
narration of the pride, the beauty, the generosity, and the large
lovable character of the ancient heroes. We may come to realize
that, losing their Druid vision of a more shining world mingling
with this, we have lost the vision of that life into the likeness
of which it is the true labor of the spirit to transform this life.
For the Tirnanoge is that Garden where, in the mind of the Lord,
the flowers and trees blossomed before they grew in the fields,
where man lived in the Golden Age before the outer darkness of the
earth was built and he was outcast from Paradise. There is no true
art or literature which has not some image of the Golden Life lurking