Now let my bed be hard,

No care take I;

I'll make my joy like this
Small Butterfly;

Whose happy heart has power
To make a stone a flower.

A GREETING

Good morning, Life-and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend—
His spending has no end.

Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high;
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green fields of flowers.

Hail to you women fair,
That make a show so rare

In cloth as white as milk-
Be't calico or silk:

Good morning, Life—and all
Things glad and beautiful.

J. M. Synge

J. M. Synge, the most brilliant star of the Celtic revival, was born at Rathfarnham, near Dublin, in 1871. As a child

in Wicklow, he was already fascinated by the strange idioms and the rhythmic speech he heard there, a native utterance which was his greatest delight and which was to be rich material for his greatest work.

For some time, Synge's career was uncertain. He went to Germany, half intending to become a professional musician. There he studied the theory of music, perfecting himself meanwhile in Gaelic and Hebrew, winning prizes in both of these languages. Yeats found him in France in 1898 and advised him to go to the Aran Islands, to live there as if he were one of the people. "Express a life," said Yeats, "that has never found expression."

The result of this close contact was four of the greatest poetic prose dramas not only of Synge's own generation, but of several generations preceding it. (See Preface.)

In Riders to the Sea (1903), The Well of the Saints (1905), and The Playboy of the Western World (1907) we have a richness of imagery, a new language startling in its vigor, a wildness and passion that contrast strangely with the suave mysticism and delicate spirituality of his associates in the Irish Theatre.

Synge's Poems and Translations (1910), a volume which was not issued until after his death, contains not only his few hard and earthy verses, but also Synge's prose-poems and his famous theory of poetry.

Synge died, just as he was beginning to attain fame, at a private hospital in Dublin March 24, 1909.

PRELUDE

Still south I went and west and south again,
Through Wicklow from the morning till the night,
And far from cities and the sights of men,
Lived with the sunshine and the moon's delight.

I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds,
The grey and wintry sides of many glens,
And did but half remember human words,
In converse with the mountains, moors and fens.

A TRANSLATION FROM PETRARCH

(He is Jealous of the Heavens and the Earth)

What a grudge I am bearing the earth that has its arms about her, and is holding that face away from me, where I was finding peace from great sadness.

What a grudge I am bearing the Heavens that are after taking her, and shutting her in with greediness, the Heavens that do push their bolt against so many.

What a grudge I am bearing the blessed saints that have got her sweet company, that I am always seeking; and what a grudge I am bearing against Death, that is standing in her two eyes, and will not call me with a word.

1

BEG-INNISH

Bring Kateen-beug and Maurya Jude
To dance in Beg-Innish,1

And when the lads (they're in Dunquin)

Have sold their crabs and fish,

Wave fawny shawls and call them in,

And call the little girls who spin,

And seven weavers from Dunquin,
To dance in Beg-Innish.

I'll play you jigs, and Maurice Kean,
Where nets are laid to dry,

I've silken strings would draw a dance
From girls are lame or shy;

(The accent is on the last syllable.)

Four strings I've brought from Spain and France
To make your long men skip and prance,

Till stars look out to see the dance

Where nets are laid to dry.

We'll have no priest or peeler in

To dance in Beg-Innish;

But we'll have drink from M'riarty Jim
Rowed round while gannets fish,
A keg with porter to the brim,
That every lad may have his whim,
Till we up sails with M'riarty Jim
And sail from Beg-Innish.

Eva Gore-Booth

Eva Gore-Booth, the second daughter of Sir Henry GoreBooth and the sister of Countess Marcievicz, was born in Sligo, Ireland, in 1871. She first appeared in "A. E.'s" anthology, New Songs, in which so many of the modern Irish poets first came forward.

Her initial volume, Poems (1898), showed practically no distinction-not even the customary “promise." But The One and the Many (1904) and The Sorrowful Princess (1907) revealed the gift of the Celtic singer who is half mystic, half minstrel. Primarily philosophic, her verse often turns to lyrics as haunting as the example here reprinted.

THE WAVES OF BREFFNY

The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the

sea,

And there is traffic on it and many a horse and cart, But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.

A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o'er the hill,
And there is glory in it; and terror on the wind:
But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still,
And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.

The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their

way,

Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal; But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray,

And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.

Moira O'Neill

Moira O'Neill is known chiefly by a remarkable little collection of only twenty-five lyrics, Songs from the Glens of Antrim (1900), simple tunes as unaffected as the peasants of whom she sings. The best of her poetry is dramatic without being theatrical; it is melodious without falling into the tinkle of most "popular" sentimental verse.

A BROKEN SONG

"Where am I from?" From the green hills of Erin.
"Have I no song then?" My songs are all sung.
"What o' my love?" "Tis alone I am farin'.
Old grows my heart, an' my voice yet is young.

"If she was tall?" Like a king's own daughter.
"If she was fair?" Like a mornin' o' May.
When she'd come laughin' 'twas the runnin' wather,
When she'd come blushin' 'twas the break o' day.