Evening star., 1938-10-23

reader and poet with rather gushing
little speeches. The effect is not to
give the reader a picture of Burns,
but to make him understand that the
author loves and Is willing to excuse
the wayward poet no matter what he
did. The spirit is admirable, certainly,
but the book is weak. Still, the history
of Burns movements is pretty well
here, and the simplicity Of the mar
rative is not without its charm in pas
sages.
VALHALLA AND OTHER POEMS.
BY Robert Francis. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
The chief work Of this volume is a
long narrative poem which tells of the
life of New England family on their
high hill farm. Valhalla. There are
three children and father and mother,
shown to be rather dangerously happy
in their isolated and beautiful country
life. Then daughter marries and
goes away, the son is killed at sea,
the mother dies of sorrow. Father and
youngest daughter live on a while, until
he, too. dies. and she. after years. find
ing herself hopelessly III, commits sui
eide.
The theme of the poet seems to
have been the great beauty of life
within a family where all members
are happy; as against this he has
shown how, with such group. almost
any outside influence is fraught with
unhappiness. The verse is smooth and
competent. the poet has been con-
vincing in his pictures of the intimate
love of his characters for one an
other, and the manner in which this
love was related to the family home
and countryside
The other poems in the volume are
short, being for the most part on New
England themes. They seemed to the
reviewer very good.
OF LOVE. BY Audrey
Wurdeman. New York: Harper g.
Bros.
A sonnet sequence is thing which
the reviewer generally takes up with
trepidation-it is SO likely to be just
one more sonnet sequence! But, in the
case Of this volume, the author has
risen above the level of uninSpired
which is generally a Sc
quence's whole, and has brought out
some rather exquisite poems There
are 40 in the collection and the char
acteristic of the group is light linn
pidity and graceful ease. AS the title
indicates, the subject is love, and the
graceful delicacy of the manner by
no means obscures the intensity of
the poets feeling, but, instead. en-
hances it. On the whole, the volume
is one well above the level of its kind
Miss Wurdemann is in private life
Mrs. Joseph Auslander and at present
makes her home in Washington.
FIFTY YEARS A WOMAN. BY 1sh-
bel Ross. New York: Harper &
Bros.
&4SeAOAi WAAtS1o oAC gwen w AAhoAoe~
ing that career women look back
from middle age into the decades of
their youth and find that life has been
futile, remembering with regret the
inevitable male person rejected long
ago.
In this, her latest book, Ishbel Ross,
a career woman herself newspaper
woman), does not commit this cliche
If cliches are committed. Her hero
inc, Mary Leith, not only takes stock
of is brilliant years in the theater at
the age of 80 and finds them wanting,
but marries Peter, the male person she
refused at 20, and at 40 reviews her
years of wedlock and finds them want
ing too. This decision it is true, is
rather forced upon her by the fact
that Peter falls in love with another
woman and asks for divorce. But the
fact remains that Mary finds having
her cake, too, as unsavory as eating it.
The reader, however. is never asked
to feel sorry for her. He has hunch
when Peter is introduced into the novel
that no good will come of it. He hopes
that Mary will go on the stage and is
relieved that, if she must have both
applause and good mans love. she
elects them in the only possible order.
The middle-aged wife who always