These are outsiders, always. These stars-
these iron inklings of an Irish January,
whose light happened
thousands of years before
our pain did; they are, they have always been
outside history.
They keep their distance. Under them remains
a place where you found
you were human, and
a landscape in which you know you are mortal.
And a time to choose between them.
I have chosen:
Out of myth in history I move to be
part of that ordeal
who darkness is
only now reaching me from those fields,
those rivers, those roads clotted as
firmaments with the dead.
How slowly they die
as we kneel beside them, whisper in their ear.
And we are too late. We are always too late.
- Outside History by Eavan Boland(1944～2020)
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Autumn, 1798, in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland.
Though the morning had arrived, the dawn was nowhere to be seen. A grayish-white mist wrapped around the waist of the sprawling hills. From a distance, the rows of slender trees appeared like an army standing amidst the smoke of battle. The sun, just beginning its ascent, cast a faint golden glow that dispersed mysteriously within the mist, arousing suspicions that this dense fog originated not from moisture, but from an enraged mountain fire, poised to sweep across the entire realm from its lofty summit.
Yet for those standing amidst the fog, the world appeared utterly different: the contours of trees dissolved into ethereal wisps, leaving only dim, blurry shadows that floated before the eyes like spectres. The bewildering sight made steps hesitate, and time and space lost their significance within this dead silence, as if everything were steeped and melded within the enigmatic mist.
Even though it was only September, the morning air retained its chill. Only a hunter would venture out at such an early hour.
As Lucas Garvan pushed open the door of the cabin, he wrapped his cloak tightly around his body, suppressing a shiver that coursed through him. Not far from his dwelling, the hunter''s eyes were captivated by a fiery red hue amidst the whiteness of the fog.
Approaching closer, he recognised that it was a young lad dressed in the red uniform of the British army, lying on the roadside amidst the wild grass, seemingly bereft of consciousness.
Lucas had seen