Why, then, with labour infinite, produce a book of verse To languish on the "All for Twopence" shelf? The ballad bold and breezy comes particularly easy-- I mean to take to writing it myself! A RUSTIC SONG Oh, I be vun of the useful troibe O' rustic volk, I be; And writin' gennelmen due descroibe The doin's o' such as we; I don't knaw mooch o' corliflower plants, I can't tell 'oes from trowels, But 'ear me mix ma consonants, An' moodle oop all ma vowels! I talks in a wunnerful dialect That vew can hunderstand, 'Tis Yorkshire-Zummerzet, I expect, With a dash o' the Oirish brand; Sometimes a bloomin' flower of speech I picks from Cockney spots, And when releegious truths I teach, Obsairve ma richt gude Scots! In most of the bukes, 'twas once the case I 'adn't got much to do, I blessed the 'eroine's purty face, An' I seed the 'ero through; But now, I'm juist a pairsonage! A power o' bukes there be Which from the start to the very last page Entoirely deal with me! The wit or the point o' what I spakes Ye've got to find if ye can; A wunnerful difference spellin' makes In the 'ands of a competent man! I mayn't knaw mooch o' corliflower plants, I mayn't knaw 'oes from trowels, But I does ma wark, if ma consonants Be properly mixed with ma vowels! _J. M. Synge_ The most brilliant star of the Celtic revival was born at Rathfarnham, near Dublin, in 1871. As a child in Wicklow, he was already fascinated by the strange idioms and the rhythmic speech he heard there, a native utterance which was his greatest delight and which was to be rich material for his greatest work. He did not use this folk-language merely as he heard it. He was an artist first and last, and as an artist he bent and shaped the rough material, selecting with great fastidiousness, so that in his plays every speech is, as he himself declared all good speech should be, "as fully flavored as a nut or apple." Even in _The Tinker's Wedding_ (1907), possibly the least important of his plays, one is arrested by snatches like: "That's a sweet tongue you have, Sarah Casey; but if sleep's a grand thing, it's a grand thing to be waking up a day the like of this, when there's a warm sun in it, and a kind air, and you'll hear the cuckoos singing and crying out on the top of the hill."