It is to have an angel in your mouth, turning your prose to poetry.
It is to have the gift of tongues, to know the language of all living things.
Does an Irishman pause and turn an ear to a tree?
It is because on this day he wants to hear what one sleepy bud says to another as it opens its pale green hands to the warm sun of spring.
Oh, on this day it is music. Not just the cornet in the parading high school band, but the deep, deep music of living, the low, sad rhythms of eternity.
The Irishman hears to high song if the turning spheres, the dim lullaby of the worm in its cocoon.
All the world is in tune, the tune that only he can hear.
It is to live the whole history of his race between a dawn and a dawn - the long wrongs, the bird-swift joys, the endless hurt of his ancestors since the morning of time in a forgotten forest, the knock-at-his-heart that is part of his religion.
It isn't only the realization that he is descended from kings, It is the realization that he is a king himself, an empire on two feet striding in power, a strolling continent of awe.
Why on Saint Patrick's Day, to be Irish is to know more glory, adventure, magic, victory, exultation, gratitude, and gladness than any other man can experience in a lifetime.
It is to walk in complete mystic understanding with God for twenty-four wonderful hours.
--Hal Boyle