These outward marks are unmistakable; and so, too, are certain qualities in the essence and texture of the work. His lyric moods may be as tender and fanciful, though always more spontaneous, than those of Mr Yeats. And one may find the arrowy truth, the rich earthiness and the profound sense of tragedy of a Synge. But the filmy threads which seem to stretch between Mr Stephens and his compatriots have no strength to bind him. They are, indeed, only visible when he is ranging at some altitude that is lower than his highest reach. When he soars to the zenith, as in "The Lonely God" and "A Prelude and a Song," their tenuity snaps. He has gone beyond what is merely national and simply human; and has become just a Voice for the Spirit of Poetry.
Nevertheless the affinities of this poet with what is best in modern Irish literature would make a fascinating study. Foremost, of course, there is imagination. You will find in him the true Hibernian blend of grotesquerie and grandeur, pure fantasy and shining vision. But each of these things is here raised to a power which makes it notable in itself, while all of them may sometimes be found in astonishing combination in a single poem. In the book called Insurrections, which is dated 1909, and appears to represent Mr Stephens' earliest efforts in verse, there is the piece which I have already named, "What Tomas an Buile Said in a Pub." Already we may see this complex quality at work. Tomas is protesting that he saw God; and that God was angry with the world.
His beard swung on a wind far out of sight
Behind the world's curve, and there was light
Most fearful from His forehead ...
.....
He lifted up His hand—
I say He heaved a dreadful hand
Over the spinning Earth, then I said "Stay,
You must not strike it, God; I'm in the way;
And I will never move from where I stand."
He said "Dear child, I feared that you were dead,"
And stayed His hand.
You will see—a significant fact—that there is no nonsense about a dream or a transcendent waking apparition. In the opening lines Tomas says, with anxious emphasis, that he saw the 'Almighty Man'—and that is symbolical. It has its relation to the mellow tenderness with which the poem closes; but apart from that it is a sign of the way in which the creative energy always works in this poetry. It seizes upon concrete stuff; and that is fused, hammered and moulded into shapes so sharp and clear that we feel we could actually touch them as they spring up in our mental vision. This is not peculiar to Mr Stephens, of course. It would seem to be common to every poet—though to be sure they are not many—in whom sheer imagination, the first and last poetic gift, is preeminent. Mr Stephens has many other qualities, which give his work depth, variety and significance; but fine as they are, they take a secondary place beside this ardent, plastic power.
We quickly see, even in the early poem from which I have quoted, the mixed elements of this gift. Now the grotesquerie which seems to lie in the fact that Tomas tells about the majesty and familiar kindliness of God 'in a pub,' may be apparent only. It probably arises from one's own sophistication and painful respectability. We have lost the simplicity which would make it possible to talk about such a subject at all; and as for doing it in a pub...!
Yet there is something truly grotesque in this work. That is to say, there is a juxtaposition of ideas so violently contrasted that they would provoke instant mirth if it were not for the grave intensity of vision. Sometimes, indeed, they are frankly absurd. We are meant to laugh at them, as we do at Mac Dhoul, squirming with merriment on God's throne with the angels frozen in astonishment round him. But generally these extraordinary images are presented seriously, and often they are winged straight from the heart of the poet's philosophy. Then, the driving power of emotion and a passion of sincerity carry us safely over what seems to be their amazing irreverence. There is, for instance, in the piece called "The Fulness of Time," a complete philosophic conception of good and evil, boldly caught into sacred symbolism. The poet tells here how he found Satan, old and haggard, sitting on a rusty throne in a distant star. All his work was done; and God came to call him to Paradise.
Gabriel without a frown,
Uriel without a spear,
Raphael came singing down
Welcoming their ancient peer,
And they seated him beside
One who had been crucified.
It is not irreverence, of course, but the audacity of poetic innocence. Only an imagination pure of convention and ceremonial would dare so greatly. And the remarkable thing is that this naîveté is intimately blended with a grandeur which sometimes rises to the sublime. The noblest and most complete expression of that is in "The Lonely God." That is probably the reason why this poem is the finest thing that Mr Stephens has done—that, and the magnitude of its central idea. There is, indeed, the closest relation here between the thought and the imagery in which it is made visible. But, keeping our curious, impertinent gaze fixed for the moment on the changing form of the imaginative essence of the work, let us take first the opening lines of the poem: