Where are silver bells on the blackthorn boughs, and golden bells on
"We that speed on the shifting floor
Where the green waters vary
With many a song and stroke of oar,
Sail for the chase of the silver boar
That's horned and hoofed and hairy:
His eyes are bright, his bristles hoar,
And hung with golden bells galore;
O many a time he flees and flies across the uplands airy,
And fierce he is, and fleet he is, and light and wight and wary,
And bravely famed in faery lore
By many a hunter sought of yore.
"The dark, salt sea is bitter and frore,
The wind of comfort chary,
But though the drenching sleet downpour
And Manawyddan's green steeds roar,
We are not solitary,
For Rhiannon's green song-birds soar
About our heads for evermore.
With the first stroke for Jesus King, the second stroke for Mary,
The third stroke for the Trinity, the fourth for the land of faery,
By one, by two, by three, by four,
We reach the wonderful, weirded shore."
XII.
I am sailing to seek my name and the name of my nation . . . nay, For I know the land that bore me, where the marvellous sea-beasts play,
the may, Where the magical Boar abideth, and the birds of Rhiannon, And Adam and Eve and Enoch, and Arthur and Prester John. I have learnt the name of my city, and learnt to ask my way, And the whole ship's crew are my fellows too, and a merry crew be they; All day we sail with a favouring gale or gird ourselves as the storm draws on , And strive and cope and rudder and rope, and sing aloud in the loud affray.
And other things I have learnt, and the first is still to say To myself, "O unlearned fool!" and also, "Fool, be gay!" O well for the glorious chase of God, and well for the hot assay! Well for the noise of water, for the hills where the sun has shone, For the trees on the far horizon and the chart we may not con! Well for the terrible mer-wolf, and the caves where the witch-wife lay Till we touched her brows where the fir-trees stand and all we witless wanderers wonne! God bless the fools and the wise in schools, et gloria tibi, Domine!