REVIEWS 513 



section. Taking war as his subject, Dr. Macfie describes in a series of splendid 

 pictures the making of the globe, beginning with the nebula curdling to an 

 incandescent ball of fire, around which "burned and boomed a plangent sea," and 

 on which — 



There hissed a heavy hail of falling stars 



Whose flick upon the lava's filigree 



Made rosy scars. 



Lack of space prevents our quoting many passages in which the imagination 

 of the poet can only be described as white-hot, as those depicting the formation of 

 strata, the birth of the sea, or the evolution of sea-marsh and mountain range. In 

 fact this first section of the poem would be a splendid thing to read aloud to a 

 classical VI. form in order to wake in them that wonder which is the soul of 

 science, and whose aftermath is reverence. The rest of the poem deals with the 

 present war. It, too, is on a high level, but the theme has been so frequently 

 treated by others, there is less room for originality. 



Cloudsley Brereton. 



