Where the Forest Murmurs
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
Pharais: A Romance of the Isles.
The Mountain Lovers: A Romance.
The Sin-Eater, and other Tales.
The Washer of the Ford.
Reissue Shorter Tales, with others.
I. Spiritual Tales.
II. Barbaric Tales.
III. Tragic Romances.
(Reissued by David Nutt.)
The Laughter of Peterkin: Old Celtic Tales Retold.
From the Hills of Dream: Poems.
The Dominion of Dreams.
The Divine Adventure.
The Winged Destiny.
To appear Shortly.
Torches of Love and Death: Poems Old and New.
The Immortal Hour: Two Dramas and a Fragment.
WHERE THE FOREST MURMURS.
NATURE ESSAYS.
BY FIONA MACLEOD
‘There through the branches go the ravens
of unresting thought.’—W. B. Yeats.
LONDON: PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICES
OF ‘COUNTRY LIFE,’ Ltd. TAVISTOCK
STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C., & BY
GEORGE NEWNES, Ltd. SOUTHAMPTON
STREET, STRAND, W.C. NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNERS’ SONS MCMVI
“To live in beauty—which is put into four words all the dreams and spiritual efforts of the soul of man.”
Fiona Macleod.
Who plays the Song of Songs upon the Hills of Dream? It is said Love is that need-player, for There is no song like his.
But today I saw one, on these still garths of shadow and silence, who put a hollow reed to his lips and played a white spell of beauty. Then I knew Love and Sorrow to be one, as in the old myth of Oengus of the White Birds and The Grey Shadows.
(F. M.)
“The network of words is like a big forest: it is the cause of curious wanderings.”
Indian Saying
TO
MR. P. ANDERSON GRAHAM
Dear Mr. Graham—To whom so fittingly as to you could I inscribe this book? It was you who suggested it; you who in Country Life published at intervals, longer or shorter as the errant spirit of composition moved me, the several papers which make it one book; you without whose encouragement and good counsel this volume would probably not have been written. Then, perchance, it might have gone to that Y-Brasil Press in the Country of the Young wherefrom are issued all the delightful books which, though possible and welcome in Tir-na-n’ Og, are unachieved in this more difficult world, except in dreams and hopes. It would be good to have readers among the kindly Shee ... do not the poets there know an easy time, having only to breathe their thought on to a leaf and to whisper their music to a reed, and lo the poem is public from the caverns of Tir-fo-tuinn to the hills of Flatheanas! ... but, till one gets behind the foam yonder, the desire of the heart is for comrades here. These hours of beauty have meant so much to me, somewhat in the writing, but much more in the long, incalculable hours and days out of which the writing has risen like the blue smoke out of woods, that I want to share them with others, who may care for the things written of as you and I care for them, and among whom may be a few who, likewise, will be moved to garner from each day of the eternal pageant one hour of unforgettable beauty.
FIONA MACLEOD.
“I have a long road to travel, but am sustained by joy, and uplifted by a great hope. I go ... to face the glory of a new day. I have no fear. I shall not leave all I have loved, for I have that in me which binds me to this beautiful world, for another life at least, it may be for many lives. And that within me which dreamed and hoped shall now more gladly and wonderfully dream, and hope, and seek, and know, and see ever deeper and farther into the mystery of beauty and truth. And that within me which knew, now knows. In the deepest sense there is no spiritual dream that is not true, no hope that shall go forever famished, no tears that shall not be gathered into the brooding skies of compassion, to fall again in healing dews.”
“The Divine Adventure.”
F. M.