ly Celtic, and his verse, at its best, is Celtic also.
Strongly influenced by Keats, he seems to study how to 'load every rift
with ore,' yet is more fascinated by the beauty of words than by the
beauty of metrical music. The spirit that dominates the whole book is
perhaps more valuable than any individual poem or particular passage, but
this from _The Wanderings of Oisin_ is worth quoting. It describes the
ride to the Island of Forgetfulness:

And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow light,
For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world
and the sun,
Ceased on our hands and faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light,
And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world
was one;

Till the horse gave a whinny; for cumbrous with stems of the hazel
and oak,
Of hollies, and hazels, and oak-trees, a valley was sloping away
From his hoofs in the heavy grasses, with monstrous slumbering folk,
Their mighty and naked and gleaming bodies heaped loose where they
lay.

More comely than man may make them, inlaid with silver and gold,
Were arrow and shield and war-axe, arrow and spear and blade,
And dew-blanched horns, in whose hollows a child of three years old
Could sleep on a couch of rushes, round and about them laid.

And this, which deals with the old legend of the city lying under the
waters of a lake, is strange and interesting:

The maker of the stars and worlds
Sat underneath the market cross,
And the old men were walking, walking,
And little boys played pitch-and-toss.

'The props,' said He, 'of stars and worlds
Are prayers of patient men and good.
The boys, the women, and old men,
Listening, upon their shadows stood.

A grey professor passing cried,
'How few the mind's intemperance rule!
What shallow thoughts about deep things!
The world grows old and plays the fool.'

The mayor came, leaning his left ear--
There were some talking of the poor--
And to himself cried, 'Communist!'
And hurried to the guardhouse door.

The bishop came with open book,
Whispering along the sunny path;
There was some talking of man's God,
His God of stupor and of wrath.

The bishop murmured, 'Atheist!
How sinfully the wicked scoff!'
And sent the old men on their way,
And