Wild swine, grazing deer,
A badger's brood,
A peaceful troop, a heavy host of denizens of the soil
A-trysting at my house.
To meet them foxes come.
How delightful!"

'The island is about a hundred yards from the shore, and I wondered how
the animals crossed from the mainland as I sat under the porch of the
ruined church. I suppose the water was shallower than it is now. But why
and how the foxes came to meet the wild swine is a matter of little
moment; suffice it that he lived in this island aware of its
loneliness, "without the din of strife, grateful to the Prince who
giveth every good to me in my bower." To which Guaire answered:

'"I would give my glorious kingship
With my share of our father's heritage,--
To the hour of my death let me forfeit it,
So that I may be in thy company, O Marban."

'There are many such beautiful poems in early Irish. I know of another,
and I'll send it to you one of these days. In it is a monk who tells how
he and his cat sit together, himself puzzling out some literary or
historical problem, the cat thinking of hunting mice, and how the
catching of each is difficult and requires much patience.

'Ireland attained certainly to a high degree of civilization in the
seventh and eighth centuries, and if the Danes had not come, Ireland
might have anticipated Italy. The poems I have in mind are the first
written in Europe since classical times, and though Italy and France be
searched, none will be found to match them.

'I write these things to you because I wish you to remember that, when
religion is represented as hard and austere, it is the fault of those
who administer religion, and not of religion itself. Religion in Ireland
in the seventh and eighth centuries was clearly a homely thing, full of
tender joy and hope, and the inspiration not only of poems, but of many
churches and much ornament of all kinds, illuminated missals, carven
porches. If Ireland had been left to herselfif it had not been for the
invasion of the Danes, and the still worse invasion of the
English--there is no saying what high place she might not have taken in
the history of the world. But I am afraid the halcyon light that paused
and passed on in those centuries will never return. We have gotten the
after-glow, and the past should incite us; and I am much obliged to you
for reminding me that the history of the lake and its castles would make
a book. I will try to write this book, and wh