We can well understand how such plain speaking aroused criticism against Franko among those Ukrainians who were flattering the people and at the same time hindering their educational advance and the improvement of their social conditions. From the very beginning of his work Franko took as his goal the good of the people. He realized that it was no easy task and that his path would not be strewn with roses. He realized the opposition that he would encounter not only from his opponents but also from those whom he was trying to help. Yet he approached his task with the coldly realistic manner of the end of the century when the hopes of decisive and rapid changes had practically vanished from the minds of most people and when it was fully understood that only hard work and slow social reform could benefit the people. Yet it did not curb his enthusiasm or his belief in the undying spirit of liberty and the good in man. He summed it up in his poem _The Eternal Revolutionist_, A revolutionist eternally Man’s spirit, driving him to fight For progress, liberty and right. It lives, it cannot die. (Translated by Arthur P. Coleman) This theme runs through all of his collections, especially of the early days and the titles are themselves suggestive. _From the Heights and Depths_, _Sad Songs_, _Night Thoughts_, _The Thoughts of a Proletarian_, _Ukraine_, _Prison Sonnets_, _Galician Sketches_, _Jewish Melodies_. The overwhelming mass of his poems especially in his early years and until about 1893 dealt with various social problems. They pictured the hardships of society, of the common man and of the poet himself in his aspirations to do something before the people. They run through all forms of lyrical verse, sonnets, _et cetera_, and form a good poetic picture of conditions as they were in Western Ukraine with the constant struggle against the Polish lords.