- Fergus. This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
- And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
- First as a raven on whose ancient wings
- Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
- A weasel moving on from stone to stone,
- And now at last you wear a human shape,
- A thin grey man half lost in gathering night.
- Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
- Fergus. This would I say, most wise of living souls:
- Young subtle Conchubar sat close by me
- When I gave judgment, and his words were wise,
- And what to me was burden without end,
- To him seemed easy, so I laid the crown
- Upon his head to cast away my sorrow.
- Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
- Fergus. A king and proud! and that is my despair.
- I feast amid my people on the hill,
- And pace the woods, and drive my chariot-wheels
- In the white border of the murmuring sea;
- And still I feel the crown upon my head.
- Druid. What would you, Fergus?
- Fergus. Be no more a king
- But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours.
- Druid. Look on my thin grey hair and hollow cheeks
- And on these hands that may not life the sword,
- This body trembling like a wind-blown reed.
- No woman’s loved me, no man sought my help.
- Fergus. A king is but a foolish labourer
- Who wastes his blood to be another’s dream.
- Druid. Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams;
- Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.
- Fergus. I see my life go drifting like a river
- From change to change; I have been many things—
- A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
- Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill,
- An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,
- A king sitting upon a chair of gold—
- And all these things were wonderful and great;
- But now I have grown nothing, knowing all.
- Ah, Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow
- Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing!