“Then dire was their disorder, as the wavering line at first Swayed to and fro irresolute; then all disrupted, burst Like waters from a broken dam effused upon the plain, The shelter of Kilultagh’s woods and winding glens to gain. … But keen-eyed Domnal, when he stood to view the rout, ere long Spying that white, unmoving head amid the scattering throng, Exclaimed: ‘Of all their broken host one only man I see Not flying; and I therefore judge him impotent to be Of use of limb. Go; take alive,’ he cried, ‘and hither fetch The hoary-haired unmoving man.…’ … A swift battalion went And, breaking through the hindmost line, where Kellach sat hard by, Took him alive; and, chair and man uphoisting shoulder high, They bore him back, his hoary locks and red eyes gleaming far, The grimmest standard yet displayed that day o’er all the war; And grimly, where they set him down, he eyed the encircling ring Of Bishops and of chafing Chiefs who stood about the King. Then with his crosier’s nether end turned towards him, Bishop Erc Said: ‘Wretch abhorred, to thee it is we owe this bloody work; By whose malignant counsel moved, thy hapless nephew first, Sought impious aid of foreigners; for which be thou accursed.’” Surely this is rank butterwoman’s jogtrot to market; the kind of thing perhaps that Mr. J. Hickory Wood and Mr. Arthur Collins might joyously and jointly produce for the delight of the babies of England. But for “the greatest poet Ireland has produced,” for “the aged sea-king sitting among the inland wheat and poppies” it is poor, poor stuff indeed. Of course, I do not suggest that Sir Samuel Fergusson—who really was a Scotchman, and not a sea-king at all—could not do better. The fact, however, that “the greatest poet Ireland has produced” managed to do so badly, and was capable even of worse, speaks at any rate a small volume for Irish poetry. The sole remaining Irish poet worth troubling about is Aubrey de Vere, and an examination of his work shows that, while he persistently exercised himself on Irish subjects, and laid himself open to the charge of Irish slackness and perfunctoriness, he could write poetry of the kind which is entirely classic in its derivation. But it is certain that he cannot be considered to have belonged to the far-famed Keltic movement, and that he was miles behind Landor, even in the severe classic vein.