And his heart rose
when he heard that, and he began to laugh out loud, for he knew that
music was made by some who had a beauty and a greatness beyond the
people of this world. And it seemed to him that the little soft rose
leaves as they went fluttering down into the valley began to change
their shape till they looked like a troop of men and women far off in
the mist, with the colour of the roses on them. And then that colour
changed to many colours, and what he saw was a long line of tall
beautiful young men, and of queen-women, that were not going from him
but coming towards him and past him, and their faces were full of
tenderness for all their proud looks, and were very pale and worn, as
if they were seeking and ever seeking for high sorrowful things. And
shadowy arms were stretched out of the mist as if to take hold of
them, but could not touch them, for the quiet that was about them
could not be broken. And before them and beyond them, but at a
distance as if in reverence, there were other shapes, sinking and
rising and coming and going, and Hanrahan knew them by their whirling
flight to be the Sidhe, the ancient defeated gods; and the shadowy
arms did not rise to take hold of them, for they were of those that
can neither sin nor obey. And they all lessened then in the distance,
and they seemed to be going towards the white door that is in the
side of the mountain.
The mist spread out before him now like a deserted sea washing the
mountains with long grey waves, but while he was looking at it, it
began to fill again with a flowing broken witless life that was a
part of itself, and arms and pale heads covered with tossing hair
appeared in the greyness.
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