heart does great things. The artist who is in mortal dread of being
thought a politician or suspected of motives cannot feel, and will as
surely fail, as the one who sits down to play the rôle of politician
disguised as play-right. That is what the artist has got to see; and he
has got to see that while the Irish Revolution for centuries has
attracted the greatest hearts and brains of Ireland, for him carefully
to avoid it is to avoid the line of greatness. For a propagandist to sit
down to give it utterance would be as if a handy-man were to set out to
build a cathedral. The Revolution does not need to be argued; it
justifies itself--all we need is to give it utterance--give it utterance
once greatly. Then the writer may proceed to give utterance to every
good thing under the sun. But our artists are making, and will continue
to make, only second-class literature, for they are afraid of the
Revolution, and it is all over our best of life; they are afraid of that
life. But to enter the arena of greatness they must give it a voice.
That is the vocation of the poet.


VIII


Yes, and the poet will be unlike you, gentlemen of the fastidious
phrase. He will not be careless of form, but the passion that is in him
will make simple words burn and live; never will he in the mode of the
time go wide of the truth to make a picturesque phrase; his mind rapt on
the thing will fix on the true word; his heart warm with the battle will
fashion more beautiful forms than you, O detached and dainty artist; his
soul full of music and adventure will scale those heights it is your
fate to dream of but not your fortune to possess. Yet, you, too, might
possess them would you but step with him into the press of adventurous