owers
on its return would have dissolved my being utterly. I felt with a wild
terror its clutch upon me, and I withdrew from the departing glory, from
the greatness that was my destiny--but not yet.

From such dreams I would be aroused, perhaps, by a gentle knock at my
door, and my little cousin Margaret's quaint face would peep in with a
"Cousin Robert, are you not coming down to supper?"

Of these visions in the light of after thought I would speak a
little. All this was but symbol, requiring to be thrice sublimed in
interpretation ere its true meaning can be grasped. I do not know
whether worlds are heralded by such glad songs, or whether any have such
a fleeting existence, for the mind that reflects truth is deluded with
strange phantasies of time and place in which seconds are rolled out
into centuries and long cycles are reflected in an instant of time.
There is within us a little space through which all the threads of the
universe are drawn; and, surrounding that incomprehensible centre, the
mind of man sometimes catches glimpses of things which are true only in
those glimpses; when we record them the true has vanished, and a shadowy
story--such as this--alone remains. Yet, perhaps, the time is not
altogether wasted in considering legends like these, for they reveal,
though but in phantasy and symbol, a greatness we are heirs to, a
destiny which is ours though it be yet far away.

1894

A DREAM OF ANGUS OGE

The day had been wet and wild, and the woods looked dim and drenched
from the window where Con sat. All the day long his ever restless feet
were running to the door in a vain hope of sunshine. His sister, Norah,
to quiet him had told him over and over again the tales which delighted
him, the delight of hearing which was second only to the delight of
living them over himself, when as Cuculain he kept the ford which led to
Ulla, his sole hero heart matching the hosts of Meave; or as Fergus he
wielded the sword of light the Druids made and gave to the champion,
which in its sweep shore away the crests of the mountains; or as
Brian, the ill-fated child of Turann, he went with his brothers in the
ocean-sweeping boat farther than ever Columbus traveled, winning one by
one in dire conflict with kings and enchanters the treasures which would
appease the implacable heart of Lu.

He had just died in a corner of the room from his many wounds when
Norah came in declaring that all these famous heroes must