Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-06-30
IRISH REBELS POEMS
PUBLISHED AS LEADER
GETS DEATH SENTENCE
Verses by Easement Included in
Remarkable Little Volume by
Pearse, Plunkett and Mac
Donagh
9TH ER NEW VOLUMES

Poems Of the Irish Revolutionary
brotherhood" tsmith, Maynard 6 Co., New
forFo, fresh, with a rare tlmeliness may be
read through in an hour, but their remem.
prance Ia likely to last much longer--say,
lifetime, at least with some OF US. For
these ~ verses come to readers fragrant,
not OF the lamp, but of swords and blood,
OF age.long yearnlngs and battle, however
brief; OF rebellion, OF prison, of death They
are the work Of Thomas MacDonagh, y. II.
Pearse Padrlac MaoPiarais) and Joseph
Mary Plunlsett, signatories of Ireland's
May Day declaration Of independence tal.
ready pathetic in its seeming remotencss).
and of Sir Roger Easement, who was yes.
terday convicted Of high treason and sen.
fenced to death. The rest are dead Off.
clally dead; the bullets were British.
However, there is not breath of British
sentiment in the poems themselves; they are
more Irish than Yeats and Hyde and Man.
gan ever were, and they pale In their fierce
unity even the passionate native faith of so
Celtic a poet as Lionel Johnson whose
Ways of War" is used as prologue to the
book. The foreword might we'll have been,
instead They went forth to battle but
they always fell" for II ever the tale of
Ireland's ageless failure was written II Is
written In these little pieces, which bear the
national imprint of scorn and song In each
line. Technically. they are what one expects
in this sort of writing-now dreamy in out.
line, now strongly palpable in their endeavor
to record an emotior--always with the sense
OF incompleteness upon them, even as the
lives and dreams of their creators were in.
complete.
To those Americans who thrilled to the
drums of Stephens Green oversee, 1t is
enough TO say that OF the four poets Mac
Donagh and Plunkett are the most def
niteiy poetic; Pearse the most Irish, and
Easement tho most classic. None of them
Is Miltonic-and none maudlIn. For sheer
beauty Of imagery and bedizenment of
sound, Plunketts white Dove of the Wild,
Dark Eyes" is supreme among its fellows
the bald melodrama OF hatred in tho next
sonnet, celebrating Brltain's fall, sounds
tragicaly silly beside it. But the poems
cannot be judged by the workaday meas
ure; they are inextricably blended with the
history of the men who wrote them. This
history is gently and sanely set forth In
preface by Padralc Colum.
That these men were students and SOL
dlers is a thing to praise; but that they
added to that the craft of the lyric Is Won
derful, and the note of lyric detestation has
rung with no such changing vigor since
Swinburne's "Go Down to He'll" So,
whether the reader reads for the curiosity
of old forms. as in Easements "Hamilcar
Barca." or for mystic comfort in Punk
etts when All the Stars" or for epigram-
matte sheen as in MacDonagh's quaint
uuatrain or for homely common sense. MS
in his tafe of the welded tinker, he must
feel, with each word, the stir of the heart
which is passionate. and which. Mr.. Yeats
says, must be sad" For over 1t all is the
smoke of old wars and the call or them
"who took up spears and died for name"
sweeping Indictment OF pro.German
propaganda in the United States In general,
and of the activities that have been here
displayed in the interests of the German
Empire by the National German Alliance in
particular, is the sum and substance or
Gustavus Ohlinger's little book. Their
True Faith and Allegiance" Macmillan
Company, New Yorlo.
without waste of words and in Sc
quential array of facts. dates and figures,
Mr. Ohlinger scores the pro.German actlvl'
ties that have been touched upon in the
public prints of this country for the past
1s months He makes claim, and supports
IL in many instances by proof proved. that
the National German Alliance OF which c.
]. Hexamer Is president. stands for policy
as exemplified in German kulturpolitic--
"our bwn prestige depends upon the prestige
of the Fatherland, and for that reason we
cannot allow any disparagement OF Ger
many to go unpunished." Mr.. Ohlinger
blames the Prussian. "whose level Is to sink
Lusitanas" and not the south German as
typlfied by such men as Carl Schurz, men
who love their adopted country as they
love music, poetry and idealism, for the
misguided energies" tnat have been dis
played in the interests of Germany in this
country since the outbreak of the European
war
There is a passionately patriotic foreword
to the book by owen Wlster, who says it
American who believes in Union, in Lin
coin and in liberty"
Dlscovered--a new Jack Londonl Whether
a better London than the one who gave us
1.-THE Call of the Wild" and a score of
rather blood-and-thundery yarns OF the out
of-dooTs is a matter of question, In 'The Lit
tie Lady OF the Big House" (Macmillan Com
pany, NJ Y.) MIR. London tries to enter the
portals of well-bred society and acts at times
a little Ill at case, Accordingly We get Curl
Gus lntermlngling of light. frothy repartee
and much concerning the technicallties OF
stock breeding IL IL unfortunate for the
tale that London seems unacquainted with
the former and that the latter is very out
Of place in such u story. The plot is, TO say
the least banal. 1t Is plain. unadorned
tale of the eternal triangle'-presented
FRANKLY and witnouI embellishments as
such. Nor Is Mr.. London's treatment OF his
subject at all remarkable The best feature
OF the book is the character drawing, which
As delightful Paula, the young wife, will
urobably attract us most, and because OF
Ia