Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/200

POETRY: A Magazine of Verse power that is so effective when a real poet uses it—the power of rhetoric. When one reads that oration On behalf of some Irishmen not Followers of Tradition, one has to acknowledge that eloquence in verse could hardly be more stirring. This oration is by way of reply to the ultra-Celtic party who would deny the Irish heritage to those who were not of Gaelic name or Gaelic stock. And yet no Irish poet has had such reverence for the Celtic past of Ireland. He has dared to make the obscure deities of Celtic mythology as potent as the Olympians; when he speaks of Angus, Dana or Lugh he treats them as great and imposing figures. The heroic age for him is the heroic age in Ireland.

A. E.'s verse is built up on simple forms, but his command of vowel-sounds makes all his lines sonorous. His poems in alexandrines have lovely sound. Perhaps the most perfect lyric in the collection is Sacrifice; its form has the delicate beauty of a rare sea-shell.

Padraic Colum

Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite, poetry editor of the Boston Transcript, is joining the procession! He has discovered free verse, he has even discovered.

To be sure, his review of Poetry of the Year, in the Transcript of Oct. 30th, does not mention the magazine, or