My gaze was still upon the fair wonderful shapes that went forth from these twain,—from the Weaver of Sleep, an immortal shape of star-eyed Silence, and from the Weaver of Death a lovely Dusk with a heart of hidden flame—when I heard the voice of two others of the Twelve. They were like the laughter of the wind in the corn, and like the golden fire upon that corn. And the one said, “I am the Weaver of Passion,” and when he spoke I thought that he was both Love and Joy, and Death and Life, and I put out my hands. “It is Strength I give,” he said; and he took and kissed me. Then, while Iosa took me again upon his knee, I saw the Weaver of Passion turn to the white glory beside him,—him that Iosa whispered to me was the secret of the world, and that was called “The Weaver of Youth.” I know not whence nor how it came, but there was a singing of skyey birds when these twain took the shuttles of Beauty and Wonder and Mystery and wove each an immortal shape, and bade it go forth out of the room into the green world, to sing there for ever and ever in the ears of man a rapturous sweet song.
“O Iosa,” I cried, “are these all thy brethren? for each is fair as thee, and all have lit their eyes at the white fire I see now in thy heart.”
But, before he spake, the room was filled with music. I trembled with the joy, and in my ears it has lingered ever, nor shall ever go. Then I saw that it was the breathing of the seventh and eighth, of the ninth and the tenth of those star-eyed ministers of Iosa whom he called the Twelve: and the names of them were the Weaver of Laughter, the Weaver of Tears, the Weaver of Prayer, and the Weaver of Peace. Each rose and kissed me there. “We shall be with you to the end, little Art,” they said: and I took hold of the hand of one, and cried, “O beautiful one, be likewise with the woman my mother,” and there came back to me the whisper of the Weaver of Tears: “I will, unto the end.”
Then, wonderingly, I watched him likewise take the shuttles that were ever the same and yet never the same, and weave an immortal shape. And when this soul of Tears went forth of the room, I thought it was my mother’s voice singing that rapturous sweet song, and I cried out to it.
The fair immortal turned and waved to me. “I shall never be far from thee, little Art,” it sighed, like summer rain falling on leaves: “but I go now to my home in the heart of women.”
There were now but two out of the Twelve. Oh the gladness and the joy when I looked at him who had his eyes fixed on the face of Iosa that was the Life! He lifted the three shuttles of Beauty and Wonder and Mystery, and he wove a Mist of Rainbows in that room; and in the glory I saw that even the dark twelfth one lifted up his eyes and smiled.
“O what will the name of you be!” I cried, straining my arms to the beautiful lordly one. But he did not hear, for he wrought Rainbow after Rainbow out of the mist of glory that he made, and sent each out into the green world, to be for ever before the eyes of men.
“He is the Weaver of Hope,” whispered Iosa mac Dhe, “and he is the soul of each that is here.”
Then I turned to the twelfth, and said, “Who art thou, O lordly one with the shadow in the eyes?”
But he answered not, and there was silence in the room. And all there, from the Weaver of Joy to the Weaver of Peace, looked down, and said nought. Only the Weaver of Hope wrought a rainbow, and it drifted into the heart of the lonely Weaver that was twelfth.