If Sigerson's first permanent contribution to literature in 1860 did not attract all the atten tion it deserved, he yet never lost heart or hope. Not only did he collaborate in the production of 'Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland' but also in 'The Revival of Irish Literature' (1894). His second great unaided work,
of the Gael and Gall' (1897), was accorded a gener ous reception. This wonderful volume contains 141 poems, going back to the very days of the Milesian invaders and coming down through all the great epochs of Irish history to the 18th century. It is preceded by a learned in troduction of 91 pages, in which the claims of the early Irish poets to the invention of an independent system of versification and to sev eral metrical devices, subsequently copied by other nations, such as rhyme, assonance, allitera tion, blank verse, and the burthen, are, appar ently, successfully vindicated. In his transla tions Sigerson has not only caught the spirit but he also reproduces the manner of the originals, and illustrates in practice the intricate and complicated technique of Gaelic verse. From whatever angle viewed, 'Bards of the Gad and Gall' is a noteworthy book. As re cently as 1913, Sigerson published 'The Saga of King Lir.> Dr. Douglas Hyde (b. 1860), president of the Gaelic League for nearly a quarter of a century from its inception in 1893, and since 1909 professor of Modern Irish at University College, Dublin, is better known as a Gaelic than as an English writer, but his work in English is by no means negligible. Besides, it must always be borne in mind that the Gaelic movement proper exercised an un doubted stimulus on the Anglo-Irish revival. Hyde's first volume of folk-tales, published in 1889, was written in Irish; but 'Beside the Fire> (1890), folk-tales in prose, had not only the Gaelic text but also a translation into Hiberno-English idiom, effectively employed, as had the poems,
Love Songs of Connacht> (1893),
One of the outstanding figures of the Revival is William Butler Yeats (b. 1865). Pressman, essayist, storyteller, poet, playwright, and prop agandist, he was already well known in the literary world, when, in 1889, he broke entirely new ground with the publication of 'The Wan derings of Oisin and other Poems.' This book is not, as has been sometimes stated, the starting point of the Revival, but it re vealed a new personality and opened up a new world of material for poetry. It is written in a style, to use its author's own words, "mu sical and full of colour," it is highly artistic, and it is remarkable for the tree voicing of the Celtic spirit. There followed in 1892 'The Countess Cathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics,' in which a still more intense effort is made to express the heart of his country. Several years were then given up to prose.
'John Sherman,' a novel in miniature dealing with life in Sligo and London, and
a story of ancient Ireland, had already
in 1891. 'The Celtic Twilight,' a collection of ghost and fairy lore, was published in 1893, and was reissued with additional matter in 1902. To 1897 belong the various tales entitled
Another of the great names of the Revival is that of George W. Russell (b. 1867), mys tic, painter, poet, essayist, economist, and leader of thought, who is generally known by his di minutive pseudonym, /E. Beginning his career as a bookkeeper in a Dublin department store, he became in 1897 an organizer, and later assistant secretary, of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, and in 1905 he was ap pointed editor of The Irish Homestead, the official organ of that body. His earliest collec tion of poetry, 'Homeward: Songs by the Way,' appeared in 1894, and was followed • by 'The Earth Breath and other Poems' (1897), 'Nuts of Knowledge' (1903), 'The Divine Vision' (1904), 'By Still
(1906). His
Poems) came out in 1913. The World War having inspired him afresh, he produced 'Gods of War and other Poems' in 1915. 1E is a mystic and a pantheist. In.his creed, man is of divine origin, and the soul in its quest for union with the spirit of life tends always to return to the Oversoul, to be absorbed in the Universal Spirit. His poetry, which appears to be absolutely sincere, is the record of the ecstatic states which come to the soul in its search for the Infinite,
high Ancestral
and consequently shows im patience with modern social conditions, and is in one sense a poetry of protest. It is, how ever, mainly pantheistic, for, in its author's con ception, nature is divine and deity is everywhere. It is therefore essentially a poetry of nature, and delights to chant the beauty and the glory of the world around us. In common with °John Eglinton,x' William Larmirtie, and Yeats, he contributed to