It is easy enough to imagine the scene in Tony Blair's study earlier this week. A second landslide victory for New Labour means that history has clasped him firmly to her bosom. The rout of his opponents, not only in the Conservative Party but within his government, is complete. He has reshaped the new administration to ensure that it is more in line with his view of "the project". A decent pay rise, say £47,000, seems in order.
Then, as the dawn chorus starts, he is seized with a sense of foreboding. What is that ghostly scene that seems to cast a shadow over the early-morning sun? Why, Prime Minister, those are the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again from the ancestral mists. The Irish Question hasn't gone away, you know.
The result of last week's poll in Northern Ireland has been greeted with deep gloom in London and Dublin. The slide in the Ulster Unionist Party's fortunes and the corresponding rise in support for the DUP spell trouble for David Trimble and could result in his political demise.
On the nationalist side, the rise and rise of Sinn Fein has provoked similar questions. What does it mean for the SDLP, for the unionist community west of the River Bann, for the future of John Hume?
We will have time to return to these questions in the coming weeks. Let us look first at what comfort we can find in last week's results for the governments in London and Dublin.
AT FIRST sight, the situation is particularly depressing for Tony Blair. When he arrived in Belfast after his first, spectacular election victory things could only get better. His public invitation to Sinn Fein to jump aboard the settlement train brought an IRA ceasefire, followed in time, by the Belfast Agreement.
The British Prime Minister was fortunate in having two extremely skilful, though very different, Secretaries of State in Northern Ireland. Mo Mowlam won and retained the confidence of nationalists. Peter Mandelson was able to reassure David Trimble in a way that enabled the UUP leader to take extremely brave risks for the agreement.
Now Tony Blair faces the task of trying to steady a wounded and mistrustful David Trimble, while at the same time having to deal with a triumphalist Sinn Fein leadership.
Yet, paradoxically, Sinn Fein's dramatic success could be the most hopeful factor to emerge from last week's poll, at least as far as the future of the agreement is concerned. It isn't simply, as some commentators have suggested, that a rise in the party's vote should make it easier for Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to put pressure on the IRA over decommissioning. The use of ultimatums and threats is not the best way to persuade the IRA of the need to save David Trimble.
The scale of Sinn Fein's success at the polls is important primarily because it demonstrates, beyond any fear of contradiction, that the political strategy embraced by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness is working. Already it has achieved more, not only within Northern Ireland but also in this state (look at last week's No vote on the Nice treaty to which Sinn Fein contributed) than 30 years of violence.
As important, these gains, in both parts of Ireland, would not have been possible unless the republican movement had decided to pursue its long-term objectives by political means. Any hopes of Sinn Fein positioning itself to make further advances in this State, including the possibility of taking seats in a coalition government, will depend on its being seen to distance itself from violence.
Speaking on UTV's Insight programme this week, Gerry Adams said it was his hope to see the IRA living in happy and permanent retirement. That is more likely to happen as a result of last week's election results, and it is a pity that this is not understood by more unionists.
ON THE unionist side, the rise in support for the DUP means that Ian Paisley and his party can no longer be denied talks with the British Prime Minister or excluded from negotiations on the future of the agreement. That has rankled, as the DUP leader made very clear in the aftermath of the poll.
It was always a mistake to think that Dr Paisley and his followers would simply fade away, just as the efforts to construct a political settlement without the republican movement were doomed from the start. Now, an important part of the task facing Tony Blair must be to find a way of bringing the DUP into the politics of Northern Ireland as constructive partners.
Difficult though that may be, there are already hopeful signs of movement. Highly effective politicians like Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds want to be inside the system, which is why we now hear them talk of the need to renegotiate the agreement, rather than smash it.
We are in for a bumpy few weeks, even months. Drumcree Seven looms. But, as so often in Northern Ireland, particularly in recent years, the political landscape is not entirely bleak. Even those steeples in Fermanagh and Tyrone can look pleasing in the right light.
mholland@irish-times.ie