1 8 Hartley Burr Alexander 



Of fire and earth, 

 And water and air, 

 And mist and flowers, 

 And southerly wind. 3 



There is no mistaking the natural pantheism. The poet is in 

 earnest when he speaks of fire, earth, water and air, of mist, 

 flowers and wind as faculties of perception. He does not dis- 

 tinguish his life from the life of the objective world of qualities 

 {not elements, be it noted). Elsewhere Taliessin sings: 



I was with my Lord in the highest sphere, 



On the fall of Lucifer into the depths of hell : 



I have borne a banner before Alexander ; 



I know the names of the stars from the north to the south ; 



I have been on the galaxy at the throne of the Distributor ; 



I was in Canaan when Absalom was slain ; 



I conveyed the divine spirit to the level of the vale of Hebron ; 



I was in the court of Don before the birth of Gwdion. 



I was instructor to Eli and Enoc ; 



I have been winged by the genius of the splendid crosier; 



I have been loquacious prior to being gifted with speech; 



I was at the place of the crucifixion of the merciful son of God; 



I have been three periods in the prison of Arianrod; 



I have been the chief director of the work of the tower of Nimrod; 



I am a wonder whose origin is not known. 



An odd infusion, this, of half-won Christianity into the shape- 

 shifting Druidic pantheism; we are led to surmise a monkish 

 revision of an earlier and more purely pagan Taliessin. Indeed, 

 such an one we find, — as pure Druid as is the heathen Amergin 

 of the Irish, — who proclaims : 



I am the wind that blows upon the sea, I am the ocean wave, I am the 

 murmur of the surges; 



3 From Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales. The citations of Celtic 

 poetry in this essay are chiefly from Skene's work, from the Mabinogion, 

 from the collections of Dr. Smith, and in one or two indicated instances 

 from Macpherson's Ossian. It is no part of the argument to discuss the 

 age or authenticity of any of these poems ; it is enough that they are of 

 unquestioned Celtic authorship and spirit. Whatever the inspiration of 

 the Eighteenth Century Celtic Revival, its expression is as characteristic 

 as the work of Yeats and Sharp in the Nineteenth Century. 



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