Spensers Island

has not altered;—   a place as kind as it is green,   the greenest place I've never seen.

Every name is a tune.

Denunciations do not affectthe culprit; nor blows, but itis torture to him to not be spoken to.

They're natural,—    the coat, like Venus'mantle lined with stars,buttoned close at the neck,-the sleeves new from disuse.

If in Ireland   they play the harp backward at need,   and gather at midday the seedof the fern, eludingtheir "giants all covered with iron," might there be fern seed for unlearn-ing obduracy and for reinstatingthe enchantment?   Hindered charactersseldom have mothersin Irish stories, but they all have grandmothers.

It was Irish;   a match not a marriage was made   when my great great grandmother'd saidwith native genius fordisunion, "Although your suitor beperfection, one objectionis enough; he is

Irish."  Outwitting    the fairies, befriending the furies,whoever againand again says, "I'll never give in," never seesthat you're not free   until you've been made captive by   supreme belief,—credulityyou say?  When large daintyfingers tremblingly divide the wings of the fly for mid-Julywith a needle and wrap it with peacock-tail,or tie wool and    buzzard's wing, their pride,like the enchanter'sis in care, not madness.  Concurring hands divideflax for damask   that when bleached by Irish weather   has the silvered chamois-leatherwater-tightness of askin.  Twisted torcs and gold new-moon-shaped lunulae aren't jewelrylike the purple-coral fuchsia-tree's.  Eire—the guillemot   so neat and the henof the heath and thelinnet spinet-sweet-bespeak relentlessness?  Thenthey are to me   like enchanted Earl Gerald who   changed himself into a stag, toa great green-eyed cat ofthe mountain.  Discommodity makes them invisible; they've dis-appeared.  The Irish say your trouble is theirtrouble and your    joy their joy?  I wishI could believe it;

I am troubled,

I'm dissatisfied,

I'm Irish.