drift like a woven wind made visible out of Paradise; never again
will that lifted hand, foam-pale, seem like the springing up of
beauty in the world; never a second time will that white brow
remind him of the wonderful white towers of the city of the gods.
To seek a second inspiration is to receive only a second-rate
inspiration, and our poet is a little too fond of lingering in his
verse round a few things, a face, the swaying poplars, or sighing
reeds which had once piped an alluring music in his ears, and which
he longs to hear again. He lives not in too frail a world, but in
too narrow a world, and he should adventure out into new worlds
in the old quest. He, has become a master of delicate and musical
rhythms. I remember reading Seumas O'Sulivan's first manuscripts
with mingled pleasure and horror, for his lines often ran anyhow,
and scansion seemed to him an unknown art, but I feel humbly now
that he can get a subtle quality into his music which I could not
hope to acquire. I would like him to catch some new and rare birds
with that subtle net of his, and to begin to invent more beauty of
his own and to seek for it less. I believe he has got it in him
to do well, to do better than he has done if he will now try to use
his invention more. The poems with a slight narrative in them,
like "The Portent" or the "Saint Anthony," seem to me the most
perfect, and it is in this direction, I think, he will succeed best.
He wants a story to keep him from beating musical and ineffective
wings in the void. I have not said half what I want to say about
Seumas O'Sullivan's verses, but I know the world will not listen
long to the musings of one verse-writer on another. I only hope
this note may send some readers to their bookseller for Seumas
O'Sullivan's poems, and that it may help them to study with more
understanding a mind that I love.