The same story is told in Coventry Patmore's _Departure_--to us the most magic of all the great little poems. But in _Departure_ it is the woman who is called.
... Again and again in the _Appassionata_, the word comes to the woman, saying that she will be greater if she speeds him on his way. She will not hear. We sense her splendid tenure of beauty--all the wonder that Mother Earth has given her.... One after another the lesser voices have told her that it must be, but she does not obey--and then the Master comes down.
It is one of the most glowing passages in all the literature of tone. The _chelas_ have spoken and have not availed. Now the _Guru_ speaks. Out of vastness and leisure, out of spaciousness of soul and wisdom, out of the deeps and heights of compassion, the _Guru_ speaks--and suddenly the woman's soul turns to him listening. That miracle of listening is expressed in the treble--a low light rippling receptivity. It is like a cup held forth--or palms held upward. The _Guru_ speaks. His will is done.
And that is what I thought of, when the Dakotan said that the Lake was listening. It was listening to the South Wind.... That night we talked of Ireland. It may have been the fairies that the little girl always brings; or it may have been that a regiment of Irish troops had just been slaughtered in a cause that had far less significance to Ireland than our child talk by the fire; or it may have been the South Wind that brought us closer to the fairy Isle, for it is the Irish peasants who say to a loved guest at parting:
"... There isn't really an Ireland any more--just a few old men and a few old, haunting mothers. Ireland is here in America, and the last and stiffest of her young blood is afield for England. Her sons have always taken the field--that is their way--and the mothers have brought in more sons born of sorrow--magic-eyed sons from the wombs of sorrow. Elder brothers afield--fathers gone down overseas--only the fairies left by the hearth for the younger sons to play with.... So they have sung strange songs and seen strange lights and moved in rhythms unknown to many men. It is these younger sons who are Ireland now. Not a place, but a passion; not a country, but a romance.... They are in the love stories of the world, and they are always looking for their old companions, the fairies. They find the fairies in the foreign woodlands; they bring the fairies to the new countries. They are in the songs that hush the heart; they are in the mysticism that is moving the sodden world. Because they played with fairies, they were taught to look past and beyond the flesh of faces--past metals and meals and miles. Of the reds and greys and moving golds which they see, the soul of the world loves to listen, for the greatest songs and stories of all are from the Unseen----"