All through the summer, Henry and John Marsh worked together, making Irishry, as Marsh called it. They studied the conventional subjects in preparation for T. C. D. but their chief studies were of the Irish tongue and Irish history. Marsh was a Gaelic scholar, and he had made many translations of Gaelic poems and stories, some of which seemed to Henry to be of extraordinary beauty, but most of which seemed to him to be so thoughtless that they were merely lengths of words. There appeared to be no connexion between these poems and tales and the life he himself led—and Marsh's point was that the connexion was vital. One evening, Henry, who had been reading "The Trojan Women" of Euripides, turned to Marsh and said that the Greek tragedy seemed nearer to him than any of the Gaelic stories and poems. He expressed his meaning badly, but what it came to was this, that the continuity of life was not broken in the Euripidean plays: the life of which Henry was part flowed directly from the life of which Euripides was part; he had not got the sensation that he was a stranger looking on at alien things when he had read "The Trojan Women," "I can imagine all that happening now," he said, "but I can't imagine any of that Gaelic life recurring. I don't feel any life in it. It's like something ... something odd suddenly butting into things ... and then suddenly butting out again ... and leaving no explanation behind it!"

He tried again, with greater success, to explain what he meant. "It's like reading topical references in old books," he said. "They mean nothing to us even when there are footnotes to explain them!"

Marsh had listened patiently to him, though there was anger in his heart. "You think that all that life is over!" he said, and Henry nodded his head.

"Listen," said Marsh, taking a letter from his pocket, "here is a poem, translated from Irish, that was sent to me by a friend of mine in Dublin. His name is Galway, and I'd like you to know him. Listen! It's called 'A Song for Mary Magdalene.'"

He read the poem in a slow, crooning voice that seemed always on the point of becoming ridiculous, but never did become so.

O woman of the gleaming hair
(Wild hair that won men's gaze to thee),
Weary thou turnest from the common stare,
For the Shuiler[2] Christ is calling thee.
O woman with the wild thing's heart,
Old sin hath set a snare for thee:
In the forest ways forespent thou art,
But the hunter Christ shall pity thee.
O woman spendthrift of thyself,
Spendthrift of all the love in thee,
Sold unto sin for little pelf,
The captain Christ shall ransom thee.
O woman that no lover's kiss
(Tho' many a kiss was given thee)
Could slake thy love, is it not for this
The hero Christ shall die for thee?

They were quiet for a while, and then Marsh turned to Henry and said, "Is that alien to you?"

"No," he answered, "but I did not say that it was all alien!..."

"Or this?" Marsh interrupted, taking up the manuscript again. "Galway sent these translations to me so that I might be the first to see them. He always does that. This one is called 'Lullaby of a Woman of the Mountain.'"

Little gold head, my house's candle,
You will guide all wayfarers that walk this country.
Little soft mouth that my breast has known,
Mary will kiss you as she passes.
Little round cheek, O smoother than satin,
Iosa will lay His hand upon you.
Mary's kiss on my baby's mouth,
Christ's little hand on my darling's cheek!
House, be still, and ye little grey mice,
Lie close to-night in your hidden lairs.
Moths on the window, fold your wings,
Little black chafers, silence your humming.
Plover and curlew fly not over my house,
Do not speak, wild barnacle, passing over this mountain.
Things of the mountain that wake in the night time,
Do not stir to-night till the daylight whitens.

"That's alive, isn't it?" Marsh, now openly angry, demanded. "Do you think that song doesn't kindle the hearts of mothers all over the world?... I can imagine Eve crooning it to little Cain and Abel, and I can imagine a woman in the Combe crooning it to her child!..." The Combe was a tract of slum in Dublin. "It's universal and everlasting. You can't kill that!"

"Then why has it got lost?"

"It isn't lost—it's only covered up. Our task is to dig it out. It's worth digging out, isn't it? The people in the West still sing songs like that. Isn't it worth while to try and get all our people to sing them instead of singing English music-hall stuff?..."