travelling in Italy, Sicily and Malta, where he had a good friend, and another winter was spent in Algiers with a sister, where he studied the Arabic literature and language, enlarging his range of images by what he found there, though it is curious that the only poem which is purely Arabic in imagery is the short poem, “It is her voice that dwells within the emerald walls and sapphire house of flame,”[1], which he wrote before he went to Algiers. I also think it possible that the queer, flamboyant and melodramatic happenings which there came his way may have coloured that part of his verse which is more unrestrained and violent than the rest, for instance some of the sonnets in “Occulta.”
Before he went to Algiers he had met Thomas MacDonagh—who was teaching at St. Enda’s School, Rathfarnham, which he had helped P. H. Pearse to start. My brother wanted someone to teach him Irish for the matriculation of the National University and Thomas MacDonagh taught him for some time, and when he discovered my brother was a poet I think there was more poetry than pedagogy in their relationship. “The Circle and the Sword” was published in 1911, the year my brother was in Algiers. Thomas MacDonagh made the selection himself from my brother’s poems, and saw the book through the press.
- ↑ Title from “The Mistress of Vision,” by Francis Thompson.
