THE
STATUES IN THE BLOCK,
AND OTHER POEMS.
BY JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
From The Boston Daily Advertiser.
"Mr. O'Reilly excels in dramatic poetry. When he has an heroic story to tell, he tells it with ardor and vigor; he appreciates all its nobleness of soul, as well as its romantic and picturesque situations; and his 'Song for the Soldiers,' and 'The Mutiny of the Chains,' in his last volume, show with what power he can portray the daring and heroism that have stirred his own heart, he writes with ease and freedom, but his poems of love and of discontent are not superior to those of other well-known English poets. His best work in this way are 'Her Refrain,' a sweet, tender poem, true to life; and 'Waiting,' that is far more impassioned. The cynical verses and epigrams scattered through the book are piquant, and enhance its sweetness, as bitter almonds do the richness of confectionery. There is another side still to Mr. O'Reilly's poetry, and it would be easy to represent him as chiefly religious, earnest, and tender. His poems abound in passages like the following from 'Living':—
"'Who waits and sympathizes with the pettiest life,
And loves all things, and reaches up to God
With thanks and blessing—he alone is living.'
"'God purifies slowly by peace, and urgently by fire.'
" From 'The Statues in the Block':—
"'And I know
That when God gives to us the clearest sight,
He does not touch our eyes with Love, but Sorrow.'"
From The New York World.
"Nobody can look over Mr. O'Reilly's poems without being convinced that they are poems; that is to say, that the writer has really something to say, and something which could not be said so well or so completely in prose. Those who are in the habit of looking over current volumes of verse will recognize that this is very much to say of them. Mr. O'Reilly's verses are, indeed, quite out of the common. There is not one of the poems in this thin volume that is not a genuine poem in the sense that it records a genuine and poetical impression. His talent is essentially, we should say almost exclusively, dramatic, as strictly dramatic as Browning's. The most successful of these poems are those which are professedly dramatic rather than those which are contemplative. This excellence in dramatic verse is national. From Thomas Davis down, the Irish lyrists, who are worthy of classification at all in poetry, excel in representation of rapid action and of the emotion which is connected with rapid action; and this is what we call dramatic excellence. Mr. O'Reilly's chief successes are in such poems as 'A Song for the Soldiers,' and 'The Mutiny of the Chains,' in the present volume."
Newark (N. J,) Morning Register.
"Roberts Brothers, Boston, have just published 'The Statues in the Block, and Other Poems,' by John Boyle O'Reilly. The poem that gives the book its title is the story of four persons looking at a block of marble and seeing an ideal in it. One, her he loved, his jewel, and the jewel of the world. Another, her upon whom he lavished coin—he drank the wine she filled and made her eat the dregs, and drenched her honey with a sea of gall; he, however, was but one, who swooned with love beside her. The third was suffering 'Motherland,' and, as may be supposed, the author's pen waxes strong at picturing the sorrow, because—
"'No love but thine can satisfy the heart,
For love of thee holds in it hate of wrong,
And shapes the hope that moulds humanity.'
"The fourth sees in the block his lost child, and the pen softens as he sees—
"'The little hands still crossed—a child in death;
My link with love—my dying gift from her
Whose last look smiled on both when I was left
A loveless man, save this poor gift, alone.
......
I see my darling in the marble now—
My wasted leaf—her kind eyes smiling fondly,
And through her eyes I see the love beyond,
The binding; light that moves not; and I know
That when God gives to us the clearest sight
He does not touch our eyes with Love, but Sorrow.'
"Here and there through the collection are little unnamed wavelets, of which these four lines are a good example:—
"'You gave me the key of your heart, my love;
Then why do you make me knock?'
'O, that was yesterday, saints above!
And last night—I changed the lock!'"
Dr, Shelton M'Kenzie in the Philadelphia Evening News.
"Good poetry, which constitutes a considerable portion of literature, has been rather scarce of late. The odds and ends of verse which get into the magazines are generally aimless and crude. The poet sits down to write what he has thought, but the poetaster takes pen in hand to think what he shall think. There is a world of difference between the results—that is, between true poesy and merely mechanical verse. . . The poem which leads off, covering only thirteen pages, is the longest in the volume, and is full of deep-thoughted expression; but it is probable that 'Muley Malek, the King,' a lay of chivalry, will have more numerous admirers. There is also 'From the Earth a Cry,' reviewing the leading events of the decade which closed in 1870. The heart-poems here are highly impressive in their truth. Here and there, on casual fly-leaves, we find curt truths; thus:—
"'Life is a certainty,
Death is a doubt;
Men may be dead
"While they're walking about.
Love is as needful
In being as breath;
Loving is dreaming.
And waking is death.'
"Here is another leaflet; an epigram if you please to call it so:—
"'You gave me the key of your heart, my love,
Then why do you make me knock?'
'O, that was yesterday, saints above!
And last night—I changed the lock!'
"Apropos of the season, which holds back its beauty and bloom, here is a bit of truth:—
"'O, the rare spring: flowers! take them as they come;
Do not wait for summer buds, they may never bloom;
Every sweet to-day sends, we are wise to save;
Roses bloom for pulling, the path is to the grave.'
"In conclusion, we earnestly hope that Mr. Boyle O'Reilly, who writes so well, wilt challenge our attention, our admiration, far more frequently than he yet has done."
From the New York Herald.
"Mr, O'Reilly has treated with a beautiful purpose the theme of four men, each imagining the statue that may be carved from a block of marble. Love is the first, Revenge the second. Suffering Motherland the third, and Sorrow the last. All these are strongly, nay, passionately drawn, with that inner relation to actual experience in the narrator, which so intensifies the interest. The first is a lovely woman:—
"'O Love! still living, memory and hope,
Beyond all sweets, thy bosom, breath and lips—
My jewel and the jewel of the world.'"
"The second, a faithless woman, cowering ahove the form of her newly-slain paramour:—
"'O balm and torture ! he must hate who loves,
And bleed who strikes to seek thy face, Revenge.'
"The third a chained woman—Mother and Motherland:—
"O star.
That lightens desolation, o'er her beam,
. . . Till the dawn is red
Of that white noon when men shall call her Queen.'
"The fourth is a figure of a dead child:—
"'I know
That when God gives to us the clearest sight
He does not touch our eyes with Love, but Sorrow.'
"In 'Muley Malek, the King,' Mr. O'Reilly bursts over the bounds of metre; but in the swing of his utterance there is a certain forceful rhythm, indicating an earnest endeavor to preserve some of the characteristics of song. In 'From the Earth a Cry,' however, all reserve is thrown off, and he launches formlessly forth. Walt Whitman chopped up Carlylesque sentences into lines at hazard, but rapidly debased the model. Mr. O'Reilly takes a high strident key, and follows Whitman's most ambitious endeavors. It is an eloquent invective, and its fitfulness and spasmodics have a certain relation to its grievous story of human oppression. It is as formless and as forcible as the onrushing mob it invokes. All that is, is wrong; what need of nice measuring of feet? It is not the measured tramp of an array that can be expected where the undisciplined millions rise to bear down drilled thousands.
"'O Christ! and O Christ! In thy name the law!
In Thy mouth the mandate! In Thy loving hands the whip!
They have taken Thee down from Thy cross and sent Thee to scourge the people;
They have shod Thy feet with spikes, and jointed Thy dead knees with iron,
And pushed Thee, hiding behind, to trample the poor dumb faces.'
"'Oppression has its leagues and its triumphs, but
'"Never, while steel is cheap and sharp, shall thy kinglings sleep without dreaming.'"
'From The Buffalo Union.
"The strength, tenderness, and exceeding power and aptness of expression conspicuous in a former volume—('Songs, Legends, and Ballads,')—are all here, intensified. The poet goes beyond the limits of any one land or nationhood. He sings here for all time and for every nation. His inspiration is Humanity, wherever it agonizes under tyrannical bonds or struggles to break them. 'From the Earth a Cry,' is a very epitome of the history of the manifold uprisings, all the world over, of the weak against the strong during the decade just ended—the voice of the oppressed clamoring to Heaven for vengeance—an arraignment of the
"'Landlords and Lawlords and Tradelords'
before the bar of justice, and in face of the terrible growth of
"' Communists, Socialists, Nihilists, Rent-rebels, Strikers'—
from the seed themselves have sown.
"We wish we could speak in detail of some of the other poems, with their rugged but splendid versification, in which the poet has taken
"'No heed of the words, nor . . .
the style of the story,
but
"'Let it burst out from the heart, like a spring from the womb of the mountain;'
or of that majestic opening poem, 'The Statues in the Block,' through which this true note rings:—
"'When God gives to us the clearest sight.
He does not touch our eyes with Love, but Sorrow.'
"We strike on a vein of keen but kindly sarcasm at the expense of poor human nature here and there through the collection, especially in a few of those gem-like stanzas that prelude the different sections. But the poet has a sweet voice for tender themes; and there are some exquisite lyrics here, too, like fragrant, delicate flowers, blooming in the clefts of the massive rock. Such, notably, are 'Her Refrain,' 'Waiting,' 'Jacqueminots,' and 'The Temple of Friendship.' The book is inscribed 'To the Memory of Eliza Boyle; My Mother.' "
Front The Boston Journal.
"The little volume containing 'The Statues in the Block, and Other Poems,' by John Boyle O'Reilly, will commend itself to those for whom fresh and spirited verse has charms. The pieces, which number about twenty, are of two very different styles; the one graceful in form, and conveying some light fancy or suggestion, and the other careless as to form, usually barren of rhyme, and irregular with the pulses of stern and passionate emotion. Of the former there are 'Jacqueminots,' 'Her Refrain,' and ' The Temple of Friendship'; of the latter, 'From the Earth a Cry,' 'A Song for the Soldiers,' and 'The Mutiny of the Chains.' The first poem mentioned in the latter group, and indeed some others belonging to the same group, have a Walt Whitmanlsh turn to them which, we are free to confess, we do not like. Take, for example, such lines as these:
"'Lightning! the air is split, the crater bursts, and the breathing
Of those below is the fume and fire of hatred.
The thrones are stayed with the courage of shotted guns. The warning dies,
But queens are dragged to the block, and the knife of the guillotine sinks
In the garbage of pampered flesh that gluts its bed and its hinges.'
"The story of the mutiny in the final poem is finely told, as is also the story of the defence of the Cheyennes, in the poem preceding it. Mr. O'Reilly is at his best when his blood is hot and his indignation roused by the thought of human wrongs; and some of his pieces, written under this inspiration, have a ring like anvil strokes, and stir the blood of the reader as by the sound of trumpets."
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
"SONGS FROM THE SOUTHERN SEAS."
BY JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.
New York Arcadian.
"Like the smell of new-mown hay, or the first breath of spring, or an unexpected kiss from well-loved lips, or any other sweet, fresh, wholesome, natural delight, is to the professional reviewer the first perusal of genuine poetry by a new writer. Not for a long time have we experienced so fresh and joyous a surprise, so perfect a literary treat, as has been given us by these fresh and glowing songs by this young and hitherto utterly unknown poet. There is something so thoroughly new and natural and lifelike, something so buoyant and wholesome and true, so much original power and boldness of touch in these songs, that we feel at once that we are in the presence of a new power in poetry. This work alone places its author head and shoulder above the rank and file of contemporary versifiers. . . . The closing passages of 'Uncle Ned's' second tale, are in the highest degree dramatic,—thrilling the reader like the bugle-note that sounds the cry to arms. Finally, several of the poems are animated by a spirit so affectionate and pure, that we feel constrained to love their writer, offering, as they do in this respect, so marked and pleasant a contrast with too much of the so-called poetry of these modern times."
Baltimore Bulletin.
"Mr. O'Reilly is a true poet—no one can read his stirring measures and his picturesque descriptive passages without at once recognizing the true singer, and experiencing the contagion of his spirit. He soars loftily and grandly, and his song peals forth with a rare roundness and mellowness of tone that cheers and inspirits the hearer. His subjects belong to the open air, to new fields or untrod wilds, and they are full of healthy freshness, and the vigor of sturdy, redundant life. We hail Mr. O'Reilly with pleasure, and we demand for him the cordial recognition he deserves."
Chicago Inter-Ocean
"We may safely say that we lay these poems down with a feeling of delight that there has come among us a true poet, who can enchant by the vivid fire of his pictures without leaving recourse to a trick of words, or the re-dressing or re-torturing of old forgotten ideas. These poems, for the most part, are fresh and lifelike as the lyrics which led our fore-fathers to deeds of glory. With scarce a line of mawkish sentiment, there is the deep heart-feeling of a true poet. His descriptions bear the impress of truth and the realism of personal acquaintance with the incidents described. There is the flow of Scott in his narrative power, and the fire of Macaulay in his trumpet-toned tales of war. We are much mistaken if this man does not in the course of a few years walk the course, and show the world how narrative poetry should be written. He has it in him, and genius cannot be kept under hatches. Passing over 'The Dog Guard,' a fearful picture, we come to 'The Amber Whale.' It is impossible to describe the intense interest that surrounds this dramatic description. A more exciting chase could hardly be conceived, and as we stand with bated breath, while the mate drives his lance home to the vitals, and the boats go hissing along in the wake of the wounded monster, we seem to behold the sea red with blood, and mark the flukes as they sweep the captain's boat into eternity. Here is a portion of the story:—
"Then we heard the captain's order, "Heave!" and saw the harpoon fly,
As the whales clewed in with their open jaws: a shock and a stifled cry
Was all that we heard; then we looked to see if the crew were still afloat,—
But nothing Was there save a dull red patch, and the boards of the shattered boat.
"'But that was no time for mourning words: the other two boats came in,
And one put fast on the quarter, and one aft the starboard fin
Of the Amber Whale. For a minute he paused, as if he were in doubt
As to whether 'twas best to run or fight. "Lay on!" the mate roared out,
"And I'll give him a lance!" The boat shot in; and the mate, when he saw his chance
Of sending it home to the vitals, four times he buried his lance.'
"We next come to 'The Dukite Snake,' a tale so simply told, so beautifully sad, that the heart goes out in pity to the poor young husband in his terrible grief. The Dukite Snake never goes alone. When one Is killed the other will follow to the confines of the earth, but he will have revenge. Upon this fact the poet has wrought a pictures so true and so dramatic that it almost chills the blood to read a tale so cruel and so lifelike. . . . Among the remaining poems of length, we have 'The Fishermen of Wexford,' 'The Flying Dutchman,' and 'Uncle Ned's Tales.' All are good; but the last are simply superb. We doubt if more vivid pictures of war were ever drawn. The incidents are detailed with such lifelike force, that to any one who had ever felt the enthusiastic frenzy of battle, they bring back the sounds of the shells and the shout of advancing columns. They are lifelike as the pages of Tacitus, and stir the blood to a fever heat of warlike enthusiasm. They are strains to make soldiers."
London Athenæum,
"Mr. O'Reilly is the poet of a far land. He sings of Western Australia, that poorest and loveliest of all the Australias, which has received from the mother country only her shame and her crime. Mr. O'Reilly, in a short poem, speaks of the land as 'discovered ere the fitting time,' endowed with a peerless clime, but having birds that do not sing, flowers that give no scent, and trees that do not fructify. Scenes and incidents, however, known to the author, in this perfumeless and mute land, have been reproduced by him in a series of poems of much beauty. 'The King of the Vasse,' a legend of the bush, is a weird and deeply pathetic poem, admirable alike for its conception and execution."
Atlantic Monthly.
"In a modest, well- worded prelude, the poet says:—
'"From that fair land and drear land in the South
Of which through years I do not cease to think,
I brought a tale, learned not by word of mouth,
But formed by finding here one golden link
And there another; and with hands unskilled
For such flue work, but patient of all pain
For love of it, I sought therefrom to build
What might have been at first the goodly chain.
"'It is not golden now; my craft knows more
Of working baser metal than of fine;
But to those fate-wrought rings of precious ore
I add these rugged iron links of mine.'
"This is not claiming enough for himself, but the reader the more gladly does him justice because of his modesty, and perhaps it is this quality in the author which oftenest commends his book. 'The King of the Vasse' is the story of a child of the first Swedish emigrants to Australia, who lies dead in his mother's arms when they land. A native chief, coming with all his people to greet the strangers, touches the boy's forehead with a great pearl, which he keeps in a carven case or shrine, and the mighty magic of it calls him back to life, but with a savage soul, as his kindred believe; for he deserts them for the natives, over whom he rules many years, inheriting and wearing the magic pearl. At last the young men of the tribe begin to question his authority, and one of them, with a spear thrust, destroys the great pearl. Jacob Eibsen then seems repossessed by a white man's soul, and returns to the spot long since abandoned by his kindred, and finds it occupied by English settlers, whose children's simple, child-like playmate he becomes, and remains till death. The plot is good; and it is always managed with a sober simplicity, which forms an excellent ground for some strong dramatic effects. The Australian scenery and air and natural life are every where summoned round the story without being forced upon the reader. Here, for instance. Is a picture at once vivid and intelligible,—which is not always the case with the vivid pictures of the word-painters. After the rains begin in that southern climate,—
Earth throbs and heaves
With pregnant presience of life and leaves;
The shadows darken 'neath the tall trees' screen,
While round their stems the rank and velvet green
Of undergrowth is deeper still; and there
Within the double shade and steaming air,
The scarlet palm has fixed its noxious root,
And hangs the glorious poison of its fruit;
And there, 'mid shaded preen and shaded light,
The steel-blue silent birds take rapid flight
From earth to tree and tree to earth; and there
The crimsoned-plumaged parrot cleaves the air
Like flying fire, and huge brown owls awake
To watch, far down, the stealing carpet-snake
Fresh-skinned and glowing in his charming dyes,
With evil wisdom in the cruel eyes
That glint like gems as o'er his head flits by
The blue-black armor of the emperor-fly;
And all the humid earth displays its powers
Of prayer, with incense from the hearts of flowers
That load the air with beauty and with wine
Of mingled color. . .
"'And high o'erhead is color: round and round
The towering gums and tuads, closely wound
Like cables, creep the climbers to the sun,
And over all the reaching branches run
And hang, and still send shoots that climb and wind
Till every arm and spray and leaf is twined.
And miles of trees, like brethren joined in love.
Are drawn and laced; while round them and above,
When all is knit, the creeper rests for days
As gathering; might, and then one blinding blaze
Of very glory sends, in wealth and strength,
Of scarlet flowers o'er the forest's length!'
"There are deep springs of familiar feeling (as the mother's grief for the estrangement of her savage-hearted son) also touched in this poem, in which there is due artistic sense and enjoyment of the weirdness of the motive; and, in short, we could imagine ourselves recurring more than once to the story, and liking it better and better. 'The Dog Guard' is the next best story in the book;—a horrible fact, treated with tragic realism, and skilfully kept from being merely horrible. . . . Some of the best poems in the book are the preludes to the stories."
Boston Advertiser,
"The first, and in many respects the best poem in the book, is 'The King of the Vasse,' which is a story of the very earliest settlement of Australia by Europeans, and before a convict settlement was established there. There is to it far greater care and finish than to any of the other long poems. In some parts it is weird and strange to a degree; in others it is pathetic,—everywhere it is simple, with a pleasant flow of rhythm, and closely true to nature. It is followed by 'The Dog Guard,' a poem which leaves an impression on the mind like Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner'—a subject which, but for great skill in the treatment, would have been repulsive. As it stands in the book it shows eminent descriptive power, and a certain freedom and daring that lifts it far above the common-place. Interspersed among the longer poems are short verses, which must answer the same purpose in the book as the organist's interludes, helping out the value of that which precedes, and that which follows. Some of these are more than excellent. They stand out as a peculiar feature of the book, adding to its completeness, as they will add to the poet's reputation. Preceding 'The Dog Guard' we have the following, which perhaps is as characteristic as any of the preludes. It will be seen that the burden of this, as indeed of the whole book, is Western Australia:—
"'Nation of Sun and Sin,
Thy flowers and crimes are red,
And thy heart is sore within
While the glory crowns thy head.
Land of the songless birds,
What was thine ancient crime.
Burning through lapse of time
like a prophet's cursing words?
"'Aloes and Myrrh and tears
Mix In thy bitter wine:
Drink, while the cup is thine,
Drink, for the draught is sign
Of thy reign in coming years.'
"Mr. O'Reilly has done his work faithfully and well; he has given us in his book more than he promised us in the preface; and to-day, with his first poetical venture before the public, he has added another to the laurels he has already won in other fields."
New York Tribune.
"These songs are the most stirring tales of adventure imaginable, chiefly placed in Western Australia, a penal colony, which has received from the mother country only her shame and her crime.' The book is the very melodrama of poetry. . . . Mr. O'Reilly is a man whose career has been full of wild and varied adventure, and who has put these stirring scenes—all of which he saw, and part of which he was—into verse as spontaneous and unconventional as the life he describes. His rhymed tales are as exciting as ghost stories, and we have been reading them while the early sullen November night closed in, with something the same feeling, the queer shiver of breathless expectation, with which we used to listen to legends of ghosts and goblins by our grandmother's firelight.
Not that the supernatural figures too largely in these tales,—the actors in them are far more formidable than any disembodied spirits. . . . ' The 'King of the Vasse' is a wonderful story, in which a dead child is raised to life by a pagan incantation and the touch of a mystic pearl on the face,—which will charm the lovers of the miraculous. 'The Amber Whale,' 'The Dog Guard,' and 'Haunted by Tigers,' are in the same vein with 'The Monster Diamond.' Thrilling tales all of them. 'Chunder All's Wife' is a charming little Oriental love story; a 'Legend of the Blessed Virgin' is full of tenderness and grace, for Mr. O'Reilly is both a Catholic and an Irishman; and I cannot close my extracts from his book more fittingly than with his heartfelt lines to his native land:—
"'It chanced to me upon a time to sail
Across the Southern Ocean to and fro;
And, landing at fair isles, by stream and vale
Of sensuous blessing did we ofttimes go.
And months of dreary joys, like joys in sleep,
Or like a clear, calm stream o'er mossy stone,
Unnoted passed our hearts vith voiceless sweep,
And left us yearning still for lands unknown.
"'And when we found one,—for 'tis soon to find
In thousand-isled Cathay another isle,—
For one short noon its treasures filled the mind,
And then again we yearned, and ceased to smile.
And so it was, from isle to isle we passed.
Like wanton bees or boys on flowers or lips;
And when that all was tasted, then at last
We thirsted still for draughts instead of sips.
"'I learned from this there is no Southern land
Can fill with love the hearts of Northern men.
Sick minds need change; but, when in health they stand
Neath foreign skies their love flies home again.
"'And thus with me it was; the yearning turned
From laden airs of cinnamon away.
And stretched far westward, while the full heart burned
With love for Ireland, looking on Cathay!
"'My first dear love, all dearer for thy grief!
My land that has no peer in all the sea
For verdure, vale, or river, flower or leaf,—
If first to no man else, thou'rt first to me.
New loves may come with duties, but the first
Is deepest yet,—the mother's breath and smiles :
Like that kind face and breast where I was nursed
Is my poor land, the Niobe of Isles.'"
Mr. R. H. Stoddard, in Scribner'a Monthly,
"'The King of the Vasse,' the opening poem in Mr. O'Reilly's volume, is a remarkable one; and if the legend be the creation of Mr. 0'Reilly, it places him high among the few really imaginative poets. . . . This, in brief, is the outline of the 'King of the Vasse.' In it we could point out many faulty lines. William Morris could have spun off the verse more fluently, and Longfellow could have imparted to it his usual grace. Still, we are glad it is not from them, but from Mr. O'Reilly that we receive it. The story is simply and strongly told, and is imaginative and pathetic. It is certainly the most poetic poem in the volume, though by no means the most striking one. 'The Amber Whale' is more characteristic of Mr. O'Reilly's genius, as 'The Dog Guard' and 'The Duklte Snake' are more characteristic of the region in which he is most at home He is as good a balladist as Walter Thornbury, who is the only other living poet who could have written 'The Old Dragoon's Story.' "
Boston Gazette.
"'This is a volume of admirable poetry. The more ambitious poems in the book are in narrative form, and are terse and spirited in style, and full of dramatic power and effect. Mr. O'Reilly is both picturesque and epigrammatic, and writes with a manly straightforwardness that is very attractive. ... Of the sickly sentimentality that forms the groundwork of so much of our modern poetry, not a trace is to be found in this book. The tone throughout is healthy, earnest and pure. There is also an independence and originality of thought and treatment that are very striking and which prove not the least attractive features of the book. Some of the stories are conceived with unusual power, and are developed with scarcely less effect and and skill."
Boston Times.
"Some reminiscences of his romantic life, the poet has woven into the verses that fill this volume. Very grim reminiscences they are, of crime and death and horrors dire; but they represent faithfully, we have no doubt, the society, or rather savagery, of those far and fearsome lands. Most of the poems are stories, sombre in substance, but told with a vehement vigor that is singularly harmonious with their themes. The opening poem, 'The King of the Vasse,' preserves a strange and pathetic legend, which the poet has wrought into a powerful, but most painful story. His imagination revels in pictures of weird desolation and the repulsive and appalling prodigies of animal and vegetable life in the tropic world; and the effect of these presented in quick succession, and varied only by episodes of human sin or suffering, is positively depressing. Such passages as this abound in the poem:—
"'In that strange country's heart, whence comes the breath
Of hot disease and pestilential death,
Lie leagues of wooded swamp, that from the hills
Seem stretching meadows; but the flood that tills
These valley basins has the hue of ink
And dismal doorways open on the brink,
Beneath the gnarled arms of trees that grow
All leafless to the top, from roots below
The Lethe flood; and he who enters there
Beneath this screen sees rising, ghastly bare,
Like mammoth bones within a charnel dark,
The white and ragged stems of paper-bark.
That drip down moisture with a ceaseless drip,—
With lines that run like cordage of a ship;
For myriad creepers struggle to the light.
And twine and meet o'erhead in murderous tight
For life and sunshine. . . .
"'Between the water and the matted screen,
The bald-head vultures, two and two, are seen
In dismal grandeur, with revolting face
Of foul grotesque, like spirits of the place;
And now and then a spear-shaped wave goes by,
Its apex glittering with an evil eye
That sets above its enemy and prey
As from the wave in treacherous, slimy way
The black snake winds, and strikes the bestial bird,
Whose shriek-like walling on the hills is heard.'
"The 'Dog Guard' is a tale of horrors. 'The Amber Whale' and 'Haunted by Tigers' are founded on whaling accidents, and the latter, especially, is eloquent with the woe of tragedy. There are a few poems in the volume written in a lighter mood. 'Uncle Ned's Tale' is a very spirited tale of battle. 'The Fishermen of Wexford' is one of the best pieces in the collection—almost severe in its simple realism, but tenderly pathetic. We have rarely seen a first volume of poems so rich in promise as is this. It is singularly free from the faults of most early poems, and exhibits a maturity of thought and a sober strength of style that would do credit to any of our older poets."
Boston Commercial Bulletin.
"His descriptive powers are remarkably strong and vivid, and his imagination powerful and vigorous. Yet it is evident from a glance at the minor poems of 'Golu,' and 'My Mother's Memory,' that the author has an imagination that will not desert him on brighter and more graceful flights of fancy. Altogether the volume is one of much more than ordinary originality and excellence."
Worcester Palladium.
"He shows originality and good descriptive power, and he treats his subjects con amore . . . . The author had the very best reason in the world for writing this collection, and a second volume will be awaited with reason; for strong points are displayed, and a person who writes because his heart wills it, sooner or later wins the heart of the public."
Bangor Whig
"There is no one of the poems the book contains that has not running through it a sort of realism that at once takes possession of the reader's mind, and he looks upon it, as it were, as an actual event."
Mr. Newell (Orpheus C. Kerr) in The Catholic Review.
"Judged in all the phases of his talent presented by this book, Mr. O'Reilly is unquestionably a man of true poetic verve and temperament, with too much reverence for the noble gift of song to sophisticate it with mawkish affectations or conceited verbal ingenuities. No obscure line patches his page; no fantastic mannerism accentuates his style; no pretendedly metaphysical abstraction egotizes what he thinks worthy of gift to mankind."
Utica Herald.
"In the leading poem of Mr. O'Reilly's collection, entitled, 'The King of the Vasse,' there are novelties of scene and legend which alone claim the attention. . . . The poem is in many respects a wonderful one, and contains many subtleties of thought and expression, which it is impossible to reproduce in scanty extract "
Literary World, Boston.
..." Mr. O'Reilly unquestionably possesses poetical talent of a high and rare order. He excels in dramatic narrative, to which his natural intensity of feeling lends a peculiar force. His verse is sometimes careless, and often lacks finish; but writers are few, nowadays, who have a better capital in heart or hand for successful poetical work than that which is evidenced in this volume."