The Puca

Joseph Campbell

The Puca's come again,
Who long was hid away
In cave or twilight glen:
Too shy, too proud to play
Under the eye of day.

I saw him dance and skip
But now in the beech wood,
Wild rhymes upon his lip
And laughter in his blood.
I envied him his grip
Upon the sunny mood.

Then altered he his note
To one of weariness:
He shook his hairy coat,
The double of distress,
And cried deep in his throat
For gall and bitterness.

         The Puca's gone again
         To sleep his wits away
         In cave or twilight glen:
         Too shy, too proud to stay
         Under the eye of day.
                              Joseph Campbell

  NOTE. The Puca seems essentially an animal spirit. Some derive his name from
poc, a he-goat; and speculative persons consider him the father of Shakespeare's
Puck. On solitary mountains and among old ruins he lives, on monstrous
with much solitude," and is of the race of the nightmare.-W. B. Yeats, Fairy and
Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry.