University of Virginia Library

“Ay, let us go,
Since Fand and joy are gone from me for ever.
And thou wert glad to see that marvel vanish!
Thinkest thou now to keep me, wretched one?
Away, for I will find her, though the god
Hide her beneath all oceans” He was gone.
Then came the women near to comfort me.
“Fear not,” they said, “since he can never find her;
He will outwear his madness in the search,
Then seek thy face again.” They brought me home,
Here to Cooalni. After months had passed,
Tidings were heard of him: he had been seen
Wandering throughout the woods and wilds of Eirë;
Taking mad leaps among the craggy hills;
By stony brink of the dim mountain meres;
On ocean shores unpeopled, when the storm
Drave the tossed waters on the torturing crags:
In calm of mystic evenings, when the lone sea-bird
Silent stalked on crimson sands, that mirrored
The Atlantic sunset: seeking, ever seeking
The glory of the lost immortal eyes.
Thus for a year the fruitless search he urged;
Then, by some chance, finding himself near home,
He came and stayed. Haggard he was and worn,
Haunted and troubled still. Our druids then
Took counsel for his healing; this they did.
They made him waters of forgetfulness:
He drank them, and perchance he did forget;
Till, on the scorched ground of his memory,
Fand's fires had burned, the verdure bloomed again.
Yet this I know that 'mid the growth renewed
Grew also her remembrance,—a slight shoot,
With flowers faint-tinted by the rose of Fand.
I found it in a bunch he gave to me,
These words, the last he spoke concerning her:
I may repeat them, though they laud myself:
Such virtue have the praises of such lips,
It were false shame in those whom they commend
To deem them undeserved. The words are these.