Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/546

Rh and mark the flukes as they sweep the captain's boat into eternity. Here is a portion of the story:—

"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,