that all the folk could hear,
"Welcome, Oisin, son of Finn. Thou art come to the Land of Youth,
where sorrow and weariness and death shall never touch thee. This thou
hast won by thy faithfulness and valour and by the songs that thou
hast made for the men of Erinn, whereof the fame is come to us, for we
have here indeed all things that are delightful and joyous, but poesy
alone we had not. But now we have the chief poet of the race of men to
live with us, immortal among immortals, and the fair and cloudless
life that we lead here shall be praised in verses as fair; even as
thou, Oisin, did'st praise and adorn the short and toilsome and
chequered life that men live in the world thou hast left forever. And
Niam my daughter shall be thy bride, and thou shalt be in all things
even as myself in the Land of Youth."

Then the heart of Oisin was filled with glory and joy, and he turned
to Niam and saw her eyes burn with love as she gazed upon him. And
they were wedded the same day, and the joy they had in each other grew
sweeter and deeper with every day that passed. All that Niam had
promised in her magic song in the wild wood when first they met,
seemed faint beside the splendour and beauty of the life in the Land
of Youth. In the great palace they trod on silken carpets and ate off
plates of gold; the marble walls and doorways were wrought with carved
work, or hung with tapestries, where forest glades, and still lakes,
and flying deer were done in colours of unfading glow. Sunshine bathed
that palace always, and cool winds wandered through its dim corridors,
and in its courts there played fountains of bright water set about
with flowers. When Oisin wished to ride, a steed of fiery but gentle
temper bore him wherever he would through the pleasant land; when he
longed to hear music, there came upon his thought, as though borne on
the wind, crystal notes such as no hand ever struck from the strings
of any harp on earth.

But Oisin's hand now never touched the harp, and the desire of singing
and of making poetry never waked in him, for no one thing seemed so
much better than the rest, where all perfection bloomed and glowed
around him, as to make him long to praise it and to set it apart.

When seven days had passed, he said to Niam, "I would fain go
a-hunting." Niam said, "So be it, dear love; to-morrow we shall take
order for that." Oisin lay long awake that night, thinking of the
sound of Finn's hunting-horn, and of the s