ell, but to accompany him on further adventure:

And now, dear heart, the night is closing in,
The lamps are not yet ready, and the gloom
Of this sad winter evening, and the din
The wind makes in the streets fills all the room.
You have listened to my stories--Seumas Beg
Has finished the adventures of his youth,
And no more hopes to find a buried keg
Stuffed to the lid with silver. He, in truth,
And all alas! grew up: but he has found
The path to truer romance, and with you
May easily seek wonders. We are bound
Out to the storm of things, and all is new.
Give me your hand, so, keeping close to me,
Shut tight your eyes, step forward... where are we?

Our new Irish poet declared he was bound "out to the storm of things,"
and we all waited with interest for his next utterance. Would he wear
the red cap as the poet of the social revolution, now long overdue in
these islands, or would he sing the Marsellaise of womanhood, emerging
in hordes from their underground kitchens to make a still greater
revolution? He did neither. He forgot all about the storm of things, and
delighted us with his story of Mary, the charwoman's daughter, a tale of
Dublin life, so, kindly, so humane, so vivid, so wise, so witty, and so
true, that it would not be exaggerating to say that natural humanity in
Ireland found its first worthy chronicler in this tale.

We have a second volume of poetry from James Stephens, The Hill of
Vision. He has climbed a hill, indeed, but has found cross roads there
leading in many directions, and seems to be a little perplexed whether
the storm of things was his destiny after all. When one is in a cave
there is only one road which leads out, but when one stands in the
sunlight there are endless roads. We enjoy his perplexity, for he has
seated himself by his cross-roads, and has tried many tunes on his lute,
obviously in doubt which sounds sweetest to his own ear. I am not at
all in doubt as to what is best, and I hope he will go on like Whitman,
carrying "the old delicious burdens, men and women," wherever he goes.
For his references to Deity, Plato undoubtedly would have expelled him
from his Republic; and justly so, for James Stephens treats his god very
much as the African savage treats his fetish. Now it is supplicated,
and the next minute the idol is buffeted for an unanswered prayer or a
neglected duty, and then a little later our Irish