The above poem, taken from the author's first volume, _Homeward: Songs by the Way_, does not reflect that homesickness of which A. E. speaks in his Preface. Homesickness is longing, yearning; and there is little of any such quality in the work of A. E. Or, if he is really homesick, he is homesick not like one who has just left home, but more like one who is certain of his speedy return thither. This homesickness has more anticipation than regret; it is like healthy hunger when one is assured of the next meal. For assurance is the prime thing in A. E.'s temperament and in his work; it partly accounts for his strong influence. Many writers today are like sheep having no shepherd; A. E. is a shepherd. To turn from the wailing so characteristic of the poets, to the books of this high-hearted, resolute, candid, cheerful man, is like coming into harbour after a mad voyage. He moves among his contemporaries like a calm, able surgeon in a hospital. I suspect he has been the recipient of many strange confessions. His poetry has healing in its wings. Has any human voice ever expressed more wisely or more tenderly the reason why Our Lord was a man of sorrows? Why He spake to humanity in the language of pain, rather than in the language of delight? Was it not simply because, in talking to us, He who could speak all languages, used our own, rather than that of His home country? A LEADER Though your eyes with tears were blind, Pain upon the path you trod: Well we knew, the hosts behind, Voice and shining of a god. For your darkness was our day, Signal fires, your pains untold, Lit us on our wandering way To the mystic heart of gold. Naught we knew of the high land, Beauty burning in its spheres; Sorrow we could understand And the mystery told in tears. Something of the secret of his quiet strength is seen in the following two stanzas, which close his poem _Apocalyptic_ (1916): It shall be better to be bold Than clothed in purple in that hour; The will of steel be more than gold; For only what we are is power. Who through the starry gate would win Must be like those who walk therein. You, who have made of earth your star, Cry out, indeed, for hopes made vain: For only those can laugh who are The strong Initiates of Pain, Who know that mighty god to be Sculptor of immortality. It is a wonderful thing--a man living in a house in Dublin, living a life of intense, ceaseless, and extraordinarily diversified activity, travelling on life's common way in cheerful godliness, and shedding abroad to the remotest corners of the earth a masculine serenity of soul.