I have said to myself he
might have given us an Oscar, a Diarmuid or a Caoilte, an equal
comrade to Cuculain, but he could not, being lit up by the spirit
of his hero, be merely the bard and not the fighter, and no man in
Ireland intervened in the affairs of his country with a superior
nobility of aim. He was the last champion of the Irish aristocracy
and still more the voice of conscience for them, and he spoke to
them of their duty to the nation as one might imagine some
fearless prophet speaking to a council of degenerate princes. When
the aristocracy failed Ireland he bade them farewell, and wrote
the epitaph of their class in words whose scorn we almost forget
because of their sounding melody and beauty. He turned his mind to
the problems of democracy and more especially of those workers who
are trapped in the city, and he pointed out for them the way of
escape and how they might renew life in the green fields close to
Earth, their ancient mother and nurse. He used too exalted a
language for those to whom he spoke to understand, and it might
seem that all these vehement appeals had failed but that we know
that what is fine never really fails.
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