The Wild fragrance of apple-blossom coming from sunken 

 A PPl e - isles across the long rolling billows, and re- 

 member, perhaps, how of old in moonlit nights 

 he has seen his keel drive through the yielding 

 topmost branches of the woods of Avalon. 

 Many poets have wandered in the secret 

 valleys of Avillion, and have passed under 

 boughs heavy with foam of dreams, and have 

 forgotten all things and been uplifted in joy. 

 In the glens of the Land of Heart's Desire 

 the tired singers of the world have become 

 silent under the windless branches, snow-white 

 in the moonshine, having found the Heart of 

 Song. 



The cross and death-coffer of apple-wood, 

 the crown of wild-apple, the apple-staff, the 

 poet's tablets of apple-wood, all the apple- 

 myths and apple-legends, how could one tell 

 of them in a few words. They are in old 

 songs and old tales of all lands. Our Gaelic 

 literature alone is fragrant with apple-bloom, 

 is lovely with the flickering shadow of the 

 apple-leaf, mysterious with symbol of fruit 

 and the apple-wood that holds life and death 

 in one embrace. Many readers will at once 

 recall that lovely old tale of Baile the Sweet- 

 spoken and Ailinn Honeymouth, whose love 

 was so great that when in their beautiful youth 

 they died and were buried, one in a grave to 



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