But while she still pondered this thing, three old Druids came over the shoulder of the hill, and advanced slowly to where the Yellow-haired One lay adream. These, however, she knew to be no mortals, but three of the ancient gods.
When they came upon Angus Ogue they sought to wake him, but Orchil had breathed a breath across a granite rock and blown the deep immemorial age of it upon him, so that even the speech of the elder gods was no more in his ears than a gnat’s idle rumour.
“Awake,” said Keithoir, and his voice was as the sigh of pine-forests when the winds surge from the pole.
“Awake,” said Manannan, and his voice was as the hollow booming of the sea.
“Awake,” said Hesus, and his voice was as the rush of the green world through space, or as the leaping of the sun.
But Angus Ogue stirred not, and dreamed only that a mighty eagle soared out of the infinite, and scattered planets and stars as the dust of its pinions: and that as these planets fell they expanded into vast oceans whereon a myriad million waves leaped and danced in the sunlight, singing a laughing song: and that as the stars descended in a silver rain they spread into innumerable forests, wherein went harping the four winds of the world, and amidst which the white doves that were his kisses flitted through the gold and shadow.
“He will awake no more,” murmured Keithoir, and the god of the green world moved sorrowfully apart, and played upon a reed the passing sweet song that is to this day in the breath of the wind in the grass, or its rustle in the leaves, or its sigh in the lapping of reedy waters.
“He will awake no more,” murmured Manannan, and the god of the dividing seas moved sorrowfully upon his way; and on the hillside there was a floating echo as of the ocean-music in a shell, mournful with ancient mournfulness and the sorrow-song of age upon age. The sound of it is in the ears of the dead, where they move through the glooms of silence: and it haunts the time-worn shores of the dying world.
“He will awake no more,” murmured Hesus; and the unseen god, whose pulse is beneath the deepest sea and whose breath is the frosty light of the stars, moved out of the shadow into the light, and was at one with it, so that no eyes beheld the radiance which flowered icily in the firmament and was a flame betwixt the earth and the sun, which was a glory amid the cloudy veils about the west and a gleam where quiet dews sustained the green spires of the grass. And as the light lifted and moved, like a vast tide, there was a rumour as of a starry procession sweeping through space to the clashing cymbals of dead moons, to the trumpetings of volcanic worlds, and to the clarions of a thousand suns. But Angus Ogue had the deep immemorial age of the granite upon him, and he slept as the dead sleep.
Orchil smiled. “They are old, old, the ancient gods,” she whispered: “they are so old, they cannot see eternity at rest. For Angus Ogue is the god of Youth, and he only is eternal and unchanging.”