a painter of note, a fiery
patriot, a distinguished sociologist, a public speaker, a student of
economics and one of the heads of the Irish Agricultural Association.

The best of his poetry is in _Homeward Songs by the Way_ (1894) and
_The Earth Breath and Other Poems_. Yeats has spoken of these poems as
"revealing in all things a kind of scented flame consuming them from
within."

THE GREAT BREATH

Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows,
Its petals fade away.

A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
The great deep thrills--for through it everywhere
The breath of Beauty blows.

I saw how all the trembling ages past,
Moulded to her by deep and deeper breath,
Near'd to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
And knows herself in death.

THE UNKNOWN GOD

Far up the dim twilight fluttered
Moth-wings of vapour and flame:
The lights danced over the mountains,
Star after star they came.

The lights grew thicker unheeded,
For silent and still were we;
Our hearts were drunk with a beauty
Our eyes could never see.

_Stephen Phillips_

Born in 1868, Stephen Phillips is best known as the author of _Herod_
(1900), _Paola and Francesca_ (1899), and _Ulysses_ (1902); a poetic
playwright who succeeded in reviving, for a brief interval, the blank
verse drama on the modern stage. Hailed at first with extravagant and
almost incredible praise, Phillips lived to see his most popular
dramas discarded and his new ones, such as _Pietro of Siena_ (1910),
unproduced and unnoticed.

Phillips failed to "restore" poetic drama because he was, first of
all, a lyric rather than a dramatic poet. In spite of certain moments
of rhetorical splendor, his scenes are spectacular instead of
emotional; his inspiration is too often derived from other models. He
died in 1915.

FRAGMENT FROM "HEROD"

_Herod speaks_:
I dreamed last night of a dome of beaten gold
To be a counter-glory to the Sun.
There shall the eagle blindly dash himself,
There the first beam shall strike, and there the moon
Shall aim all night her argent archery;
And it shall be the tryst of sundered stars,
The haunt of dead and dreaming Solomon;
Shall send a light upon the lost