“O flame of love!” sighed the child, and he clasped it to his breast: and it was a moonshine glory about the two hearts that he had, the heart of Isla and the heart of Eilidh, that were thenceforth one.
At dawn he was no longer there. Already the sunrise was warm upon him where he lay, newborn, upon the breast of Eilidh.
“It is the end,” murmured Isla when he waked. “She has never come. For sure now, the darkness and the silence.”
Then he remembered the words of Maol the Druid, he that was a seer and had told him of Orchil, the dim goddess who is under the brown earth, in a vast cavern, where she weaves at two looms. With one hand she weaves life upward through the grass: with the other she weaves death downward through the mould: and the sound of the weaving is Eternity, and the name of it in the green world is Time. And, through all, Orchil weaves the weft of Eternal Beauty, that passeth not, though its soul is Change.
And these were the words of Orchil, on the lips of Maol the Druid, that was old, and knew the mystery of the Grave:
When thou journeyest towards the Shadowy Gate take neither Fear with thee nor Hope, for both are abashed hounds of silence in that place: but take only the purple nightshade for sleep, and a vial of tears and wine, tears that shall be known unto thee and old wine of love. So shalt thou have thy silent festival, ere the end.
So therewith Isla, having in his weariness the nightshade of sleep, and in his mind the slow dripping rain of familiar tears, and deep in his heart the old wine of love, bowed his head.
It was well to have lived, since life was Eilidh. It was well to cease to live, since Eilidh came no more.
Then suddenly he raised his head. There was music in the green world above. A sun-ray opened the earth about him: staring upward he beheld Angus Ogue.
“Ah, fair face of the god of youth,” he sighed. Then he saw the white birds that fly about the head of Angus Ogue, and he heard the music that his breath made upon the harp of the wind.