nd a more beautiful name
for a hermit? Guaire is the brother's name. Marban and King Guaire. Now,
imagine the two brothers meeting for a poetic disputation regarding the
value of life, and each speaking from his different point of view! True
that Guaire's point of view is only just indicated--he listens to his
brother, for a hermit's view of life is more his own than a king's. It
pleases me to think that the day the twain met to discourse of life and
its mission was the counterpart of the day I spent on the island. My day
was full of drifting cloud and sunshine, and the lake lay like a mirror
reflecting the red shadow of the island. So you will understand that the
reasons Marban gave for living there in preference to living the life of
the world seemed valid, and I could not help peering into the bushes,
trying to find a rowan-tree--for he speaks of one. The rowan is the
mountain-ash. I found several. One tree was covered with red berries,
and I broke off a branch and brought it home, thinking that perchance it
might have come down to us from one planted by Marban's hand. Of
blackthorns there are plenty. The adjective he uses is "dusky." Could he
have chosen a more appropriate one? I thought, too, of "the clutch of
eggs, the honey and the mast" that God sent him, of "the sweet apples
and red whortleberries," and of his dish of "strawberries of good taste
and colour."

'It is hard to give in an English translation an idea of the richness of
the verse, heavily rhymed and winningly alliterated, but you will see
that he enumerates the natural objects with skill. The eternal
summer--the same in his day as in ours--he speaks of as "a coloured
mantle," and he mentions "the fragrance of the woods." And seeing the
crisp leaves--for the summer was waning--I repeated his phrase, "the
summer's coloured mantle," and remembered:

"Swarms of bees and chafers, the little musicians of the world--
A gentle chorus."

"The wren," he says, "is an active songster among the hazel boughs.
Beautifully hooded birds, wood-peckers, fair white birds, herons,
sea-gulls, come to visit me." There is no mournful music in his island;
and as for loneliness, there is no such thing in

"My lowly little abode, hidden in a mane of green-barked yew-tree.
Near is an apple-tree,
Big like a hostel;
A pretty bush thick as a fist of hazel-nuts, a choice spring and
water fit for a Prince to drink.
Round it tame swine lie down,