But flee while you may flee from him.’
Then I:
‘This demon shall be pierced and drop and die,
And his loose bulk be thrown in the loud tide.’
‘Flee from him,’ pearl-pale Niamh weeping cried,
‘For all men flee the demons’; but moved not,
Nor shook my firm and spacious soul one jot;
There was no mightier soul of Heber’s line;
Now it is old and mouse-like: for a sign
I burst the chain: still earless, nerveless, blind,