Ah, what deep despair might move

If the beauty lit a smile,

Or the heart was warm with love

That was pondering the while.

He has built his monument

With the winds of time at strife,

Who could have before he went

Written in the book of life.

To the stars from which he came

Empty handed he goes home;

He who might have wrought in flame

Only traced upon the foam.'

 [33] 

[33]

THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE

'Sinend daughter of Lodan Lucharglan, son of Lir, out of the Land of Promise went to Connlas' Well which is under the sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are the hazels of wisdom and inspiration that is, the hazels of the science of poetry; and in the same hour their fruit and their blossom & their foliage break forth, and then fall upon the well in the same shower, which raises upon the water a royal surge of purple.'

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