Pàdraig of Cruden

I still treasure in my memory the Paddie's sketch of Arbella made on that sunny day of our scouting journey through the countryside. On it she had a quite certain outward aspect of the White Goddess, sharply jarring not only with all these both country and city girls I had ever seen before but also with all general truths ascertained by me until then from the very first days of a terminal and incurable illness named self-consciousness and giving way to something in me that was engendered before the stars and saw from afar the sun assuming its form being communed with the Absolute. Through the dark haze of my present existence, as a clad gown's train, not seen but scarcely heard, I drag this past that saw All-that-might-be like a crepuscle growing pale on the verge of an ebbing night — forever sunk before it into the mute and vast ocean of Ages.