enough, for all the preponderance of lyric
in it, to show that he could do it, were we without such lines of "large
accent" as I have quoted from "The Countess Cathleen" to prove that
beyond doubt. There is no better material for epic as yet unused than
Irish legends, but there is none the old bard developed into epic
proportions. There would be here the largest scope for the shaping power
of the poet. Mr. Yeats must, of course, have thought of epic, but
preferred drama as more in harmony with our time. Lionel Johnson said
that Mr. Yeats took to drama because he liked to hear his lines finely
spoken, but, surely, if that were his greatest delight, he could invent
some way in which to bring story in verse to listeners. It were surely a
lesser task than that of stimulating Mr. Dolmetsch to make a psaltery to
which his lyrics may be musically spoken.

From the beginning, the verse of Mr. Yeats has had vocal quality, a
quality that is unfortunately often rarer in good poetry than in verse
that is good rhetoric. I cannot see that his interest in the psaltery,
that developed after 1900, has brought about any change in the quality
of his verse. There have been constant to it since "The Wanderings of
Oisin" all the qualities that distinguish it to-day,--its eloquence, its
symbols that open up unending vistas through mysteries, its eeriness as
of the bewildering light of late sunset over gray-green Irish bog and
lake and mountain, its lonely figures as great in their simplicity as
those of Homer, its plain statement of high passion that breaks free of
all that is occult and surprises with its clarity where so much is dim
with dream. First one and then another of these qualities has most
interested him. He has written in explanation of patriotic verse, of
folk-verse, of verse based on the old court romances, of symbolism, of
Rosicrucianism, of essences, of speaking to the psaltery, of dramatic
art; and all the time he has practiced poetry, the interest of the time
resulting in now the greater emphasis on one quality in the poetry, and
now on another quality. It would be superfluous to do more than point
out most of these qualities, but a word on his use of symbols may help
to a fuller understanding of his poetry. I am very sure that I read
wrong meanings from many of these symbols, as one who has not the
password must. They require definite knowledge of magical tradition, and
of the poet's interpretation of Celtic tradition, for a