on, the evil lover of ill-fated Deirdre. Cuculain, too, the
war-loving son of Sualtam, shall rise again,--in whom one part of our
national genius finds its perfect flower. We shall hear the thunder of
his chariot, at the Battle of the Headland of the Kings, when Meave the
winsome and crafty queen of Connacht comes against him, holding in
silken chains of her tresses the valiant spirit of Fergus. The whole
life of that heroic epoch, still writ large upon the face of the land,
shall come forth clear and definite; we shall stand by the threshold of
Cuculain's dwelling, and move among the banquet-halls of Emain of Maca.
We shall look upon the hills and valleys that Meave and Deirdre looked
on, and hear the clash of spear and shield at the Ford of the
river,--and this even though we must go back two thousand years.

To this will follow a Third Epoch, where another side of Ireland's
genius will write itself in epic all across the land, with songs for
every hillside, and stories for every vale and grove. Here our more
passionate and poetic force will break forth in the lives of Find, son
of Cumal, the lord of warriors; in his son Ossin, most famous bard of
the western lands, and Ossin's son Oscar, before whose might even the
fiends and sprites cowered back dismayed. As the epoch of Cuculain shows
us our valor finding its apotheosis, so shall we find in Find and Ossin
and Oscar the perfect flower of our genius for story and song; for
romantic life and fine insight into nature; for keen wit and gentler
humor. The love of nature, the passion for visible beauty, and chiefly
the visible beauty of our land, will here show itself clearly,--a sense
of nature not merely sensuous, but thrilling with hidden and mystic
life. We shall find such perfection in this more emotional and poetic
side of Irish character as will leave little for coming ages to add. In
these two early epochs we shall see the perfecting of the natural man;
the moulding of rounded, gracious and harmonious lives, inspired with
valor and the love of beauty and song.

Did our human destiny stop there, with the perfect life of individual
men and women, we might well say that these two epochs of Ireland
contain it all; that our whole race could go no further. For no man
lived more valiant than Cuculain, more generous than Fergus, more full
of the fire of song than Ossin, son of Find. Nor amongst women were any
sadder than Deirdre and Grania; craftier than Meave, more winso