The New York herald., 1921-07-31
Reviewed by
BENJAMIN DE CASSERES.

a dynamic revolutionary, lyri-
cal poet of the first order. The
author of the Psalms. the Book of
Revelation, Omar Khayyam, Victor
Hugo, Shelley Whitman, Nietzsche,
Swinburne, Blake, Verhaeren. Dan
nunzio, Carducci are some of the vol
canic isles of the ages, red clarions be-
fers who fire the domes Of the classical
Halls of Fame.
Kostes Palamas must be enrolled
among the great dynamic lyricists.
He is the greatest figure in modern
Greece. He is world poet He is
Greek, moreover, to the core. He is
patriotic in the sense that Victor Hugo
is Frances greatest patriot, Walt
Whitman is Americas supreme an
nouncer and Gabrielle D'Annunzio the
glorifier OF Italy.
The real glorifiers of their country
are poetic idealists. Their road is a
Via Dolorosa. They do not belong to
security leagues, defence societies or
salute the flag because they are afraid
not to do so. Their work is psychic,
spiritual. They work on the conscience
They dig into the flesh of the people.
They electrify, consolidate, and LASH
They are dissenters, because dissent is
growth. The poetic tomtits swarm
everywhere. Rarely comes the eagle.
Kostes Palamas is an eagle.
He has fought his battle. In 1900
Kostes Palamas was the ruling spirit
among the Hairy Ones" of Athens.
He was then secretary of the Univer-
sity of Athens He led the war against
the "purists and the monks The
sword of Romanticism and Individual
ism was drawn again against classical
forms and ecclesiastical hegemony.
Kostes Palamas led the same revolt
in Greece that Heine led in Germany,
Hugo in France, Swinburne in Eng
land and Whitman in the United
States. Riots ensued. Eight were
killed and sixty wounded in the streets.
Kostes Palamas scrawled on the walls
of Athens, THE poet is the greatest
patriot"
Europe takes it's Art seriously. Can
we conceive of such a thing happen
ing here in the attempt to take "Jur-
gen. off the Index?
Since that time Kostes Palamas has
steadily mounted the heavens, the star
of his genius waxing with the years.
France has already acclaimed him.
Two years ago Mr.. Phoutrides gave
Kostes Palamas's Life Immovable" to
the English speaking world. 1 then
had the privilege of hailing him as a
world event in poetic literature. Ec-
stasy is his life. He Is a pagan-the
ancient dithyrambic soul of Greece re-
vivified. He has the frenzy of Robins
marbles, the sublime vision of Shelley,
the flame Of Hugo. A "Praxiteles of
Shadow" he sometimes calls himself,
and again he says, BLOOD of my blood
the madman was!" Prometheus is the
Adamic father of great poets.
"A Hundred Voices" the first part
of the present volume, is a collection
of short poems in lyrical blank verse.
They record moods and observations.
Life and its everyday questions have
battered at his nerves. Their note is
sad, but OF an immemorial beauty
Thought--the Intellectual Beauty of
Shelley-is always his refuge.
o sins of weakness, sufferings of flesh,
o wasted youth, and wayward years or
manhood.
Dreams robed In white and thoughts of
bitter scorn.
Sweet mate, and orphan home, and cruel
life.
My hour of death is near. Yet when
the hands
or the black ogress, throttler of the
world,
Press me with iron claws. shall not
fear;
Written on me with burning letters, she
Will read II loved you well. o Muse
of Thought 20
The second part of the volume con-
tains poems from "The Hymns and
Songs of Wrath" This is the funda-
mental Kosres Palamas. In his poem
to Victor Hugo he quotes the great
Frenchman:
Words cannot be divided into noble
words and vulgar:
They all are flowers for the precious bee
of thought.
The Cross of Christ is made to con-
verse with tranquil gods" and to
weave crowns "of the wild olive tree
of Attica and of the laurel
boughs of Helas," thus minging the
"cloud of Calvary with tho white CLEAN
of Olympus" In THE Great Dream"