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THE POEM-BOOK OF THE GAEL

hearts whatever century produced it. The voice of love is alike in every age. It has no date.

Having written so far, we begin to wonder whether it was wise or necessary to set so much prose between the reader and the poems which, as we hope, he wishes to read. In an ordinary anthology, the interruption of a long preface is a mistake and an intrusion, for, more than any other good art, good poetry must explain itself.The mood in which a poem touches us acutely may be recorded, but it cannot be reproduced in or for the reader. He must find his own moment. For the most part, these Irish poems need no introduction. We need no one to explain to us the beauty of the lines in the "Flower of Nut-brown Maids":

"I saw her coming towards me o'er the face of the mountain,Like a star glimmering through the mist";

or to remind us of the depth of Cuchulain's sorrow when over the dead body of his son he called aloud:

"The end is come, indeed, for me;I am a man without son, without wife;I am the father who slew his own child;I am a broken, rudderless barkTossed from wave to wave in the tempest wild;An apple blown loose from the garden-wall,I am over-ripe, and about to fall;"

or to tell us that the "Blackthorn," or "Donall Oge," or "Eileen Aroon," are exquisite in their pathos and tenderness. But there are, besides these enchanting things, which we are prepared to expect from Irish verse, also

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