I have
been a narrow blade of a sword, I have been a drop in the air, I have
been a shining star, I have been a word in a book, I have been a book
in the beginning, I have been a light in a lantern a year and a half,
I have been a bridge for passing over three-score rivers; I have
journeyed as an eagle, I have been a boat on the sea, I have been a
director in battle, I have been a sword in the hand, I have been a
shield in fight, I have been the string of a harp, I have been
enchanted for a year in the foam of water. There is nothing in which
I have not been,'--the question is, have these 'statements of the
universal presence of the wonder-working magician' nothing which
distinguishes them from 'similar creations of the human mind in times
and places the most remote;' have they not an inwardness, a severity
of form, a solemnity of tone, which indicates the still reverberating
echo of a profound doctrine and discipline, such as was Druidism?
Suppose we compare Taliesin, as Mr. Nash invites us, with the gleeman
of the Anglo-Saxon Traveller's Song. Take the specimen of this song
which Mr. Nash himself quotes: 'I have been with the Israelites and
with the Essyringi, with the Hebrews and with the Indians and with
the Egyptians; I have been with the Medes and with the Persians and
with the Myrgings.
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