The poets of that time had the broad freshness of mind obtained by considering the movements of the stars the coming and going of light and the causes of the wind. [...] The sincerity of the efforts of Davis who conceived the idea of enlisting the suport of the poets won the praise even of men like Lord Macaulay and Lord Jeffry. [...] He defined the most essential tasks : The translation of Gaelic texts the moulding of the various historical cycles into an imaginative unity after the fashion of Malory the treament in verse of isolated episodes and tales of the heroic world and of the supernatural and finally the collection of folk stories. [...] We are not concerned with the thesis of the idealist for a reconstruction of society or his remarkable characterisation of Wordsworth as "the first and greatest of the unemployed" or of Goethe who "by reason of his propensity became indirectly the cause of the captivity of his brethren." What strikes us is the volume of emotion and brilliant expression of his revolt against the artificialities [...] In the cry of the wind and the rolling of the waters he hears the"A STUDY OF MODERN IRISH LITERATURE 3 7 tramp of the marching feet of creatures of another world and the breath of elemental powers.
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