genuine lyric. Whitman, himself the most democratic poet of the modern
world, felt this deficiency in the literature of the later democracies,
and lamented the absence of great heroic figures. The poets have dropped
out of the divine procession, and sing a solitary song. They inspire
nobody to be great, and failing any finger-post in literature pointing
to true greatness our democracies too often take the huckster from his
stall, the drunkard from his pot, the lawyer from his court, and the
company promoter from the director's chair, and elect them as
representative men. We certainly do this in Ireland. It is--how many
hundred years since greatness guided us? In Ireland our history begins
with the most ancient of any in a mythical era when earth mingled with
heaven. The gods departed, the half-gods also, hero and saint after
that, and we have dwindled down to a petty peasant nationality, rural
and urban life alike mean in their externals. Yet the cavalcade, for
all its tattered habiliments, has not lost spiritual dignity. There is
still some incorruptible spiritual atom in our people. We are still in
some relation to the divine order; and while that uncorrupted spiritual
atom still remains all things are possible if by some inspiration there
could be revealed to us a way back or forward to greatness, an Irish
polity in accord with national character.





III.



In formulating an Irish polity we have to take into account the change