"We strike on a vein of keen but kindly sarcasm at the expense of poor human nature here and there through the collection, especially in a few of those gem-like stanzas that prelude the different sections. But the poet has a sweet voice for tender themes; and there are some exquisite lyrics here, too, like fragrant, delicate flowers, blooming in the clefts of the massive rock. Such, notably, are 'Her Refrain,' 'Waiting,' 'Jacqueminots,' and 'The Temple of Friendship.' The book is inscribed 'To the Memory of Eliza Boyle; My Mother.' "
Front The Boston Journal.
"The little volume containing 'The Statues in the Block, and Other Poems,' by John Boyle O'Reilly, will commend itself to those for whom fresh and spirited verse has charms. The pieces, which number about twenty, are of two very different styles; the one graceful in form, and conveying some light fancy or suggestion, and the other careless as to form, usually barren of rhyme, and irregular with the pulses of stern and passionate emotion. Of the former there are 'Jacqueminots,' 'Her Refrain,' and ' The Temple of Friendship'; of the latter, 'From the Earth a Cry,' 'A Song for the Soldiers,' and 'The Mutiny of the Chains.' The first poem mentioned in the latter group, and indeed some others belonging to the same group, have a Walt Whitmanlsh turn to them which, we are free to confess, we do not like. Take, for example, such lines as these:
"'Lightning! the air is split, the crater bursts, and the breathing
Of those below is the fume and fire of hatred.
The thrones are stayed with the courage of shotted guns. The warning dies,
But queens are dragged to the block, and the knife of the guillotine sinks
In the garbage of pampered flesh that gluts its bed and its hinges.'
"The story of the mutiny in the final poem is finely told, as is also the story of the defence of the Cheyennes, in the poem preceding it. Mr. O'Reilly is at his best when his blood is hot and his indignation roused by the thought of human wrongs; and some of his pieces, written under this inspiration, have a ring like anvil strokes, and stir the blood of the reader as by the sound of trumpets."
