midday
His hand had grown heavy on the blackthorn he leaned on , and his cheeks were hollow and worn , but so far as food went , potatoes and milk and a bit of oaten cake , he had what he wanted of it ; and it is not on the edge of so wild and boggy a place as Echtge a mug of spirits would be wanting , with the taste of the turf smoke on it . He would wander about the big wood at Kinadife , or he would sit through many hours of the day among the rushes about Lake Belshragh , listening to the streams from the hills , or watching the shadows in the brown bog pools ; sitting so quiet as not to startle the deer that came down from the heather to the grass and the tilled fields at the fall of night . As the days went by it seemed as if he was beginning to belong to some world out of sight and misty , that has for its mearing the colours that are beyond all other colours and the silences that are beyond all silences of this world . And sometimes he would hear coming and going in the wood music that when it stopped went from his memory like a dream ; and once in the stillness of midday he heard a sound like the clashing of many swords , that went on for long time without any break . And at the fall of night and at moonrise the lake would grow to be like a gateway of silver and shining stones , and there would come from its silence the faint sound of keening and of frightened laughter broken by the wind , and many pale beckoning hands . He was sitting looking into the water one evening in harvest time , thinking of all the secrets that were shut into the lakes and the mountains , when he heard a cry coming from the south , very faint at first , but getting louder and clearer as the shadow of the rushes grew longer , till he could hear the words , ` I am beautiful , I am beautiful ; the birds in the air , the moths under the leaves , the flies over the water look at me , for they never saw any one so beautiful as myself . I am young ; I am young : look upon me , mountains ; look upon me , perishing woods , for my body will shine like the white waters when you have been hurried away .