an ecstasy of self-satisfaction, seeking some little job which is
the El Dorado of their desires as if there were naught else, as if
humanity were not going from the Great Deep to the Great Deep of
Deity, with wind and water, fire and earth, stars and sun, lordly
companions for it on its path to a divine destiny. We have our
share of these in Ireland in high and low places, but I do not
write for them. This essay is for those who are working at laying
deep the foundations of a new social order, to hearten them with
some thought of what their labor may bring to Ireland. I welcome
to this work the United Irishwomen. As one of their poetesses
has said in a beautiful song, the services of women to Ireland in
the past have been the services of mourners to the stricken. But
for today and tomorrow we need hope and courage and gaiety, and I
repeat for them the last passionate words of her verse:

Rise to your feet, O daughters, rise,
Our mother still is young and fair.
Let the world look into your eyes
And see her beauty shining there.
Grant of that beauty but one ray,
Heroes shall leap from every hill;
Today shall be as yesterday,
The red blood burns in Ireland still.





THOUGHTS FOR A CONVENTION