Review:Milligan:The Beckoning Skyline (C.E.A.)

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Review:Milligan:The Beckoning Skyline (C.E.A.) written by Author:C. E. A.

Review:Einstein:Relativity (T.S.)

The Canadian Forum, February 1921, p. 154

The Beckoning Skyline and Other Poems, by J. Lewis Milligan] (McClelland and Stewart). The title-poem might have been less poetically named The Lure of Canada. It is the story of the surrender to the spirit of adventure by an English "bard obscure", who has dreamed "mighty Iliads of the soul", of his weeping alone in the "murdered house" after the sale of the old home, of the parting, the voyage, and the arrival at Quebec "gemmed with lamps against the sky". Other poems, such as Toronto at Dawn and Niagara by Moonlight, enable one to follow the poet through other chapters of his adventures.

The book is interesting because of the author's unstudied candour, his sincere and lucid style, and the simple experiences which he interprets. One finds it less easy to justify the book as poetry. A dangerous fluency in rhythm and rhyme is only partly counteracted by the writer's journalistic instinct for vigorous and unambiguous expressions. In a rather large number of poems, where the author, only concerned about his philosophy, maintains a solemn optimism by an easy effort of his fancy, one wonders whether the quest of his adventure may not be really Poetry rather than Life.

C. E. A.