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their directness, simplicity, and singable qualities, some of them are almost impeccable. Take, for example, "The Little Red Lark Oh, swan of slendernees, dove of tenderness, Jewel of joys. arise The little red lark, like a rosy spark, Of song to his sunburst flies. But till thou art risen, earth is a prison, Full of my lonesome sighs; Then awake and discover to thy fond lover The morn of thy matchless eyes. If this were not written for an air, one would be impelled to create an air for it. And not only is it a delightful love lyric, it is unquestion- ably and characteristically an Irish love lyric, in its imagery, and its absence of the fleshly, and its love of chiming rhymes. You will find the same characteristically Irish note in I'm left all alone like a stone at the side of the street, With no kind "Good-day" on the way from the many I meet. Still with looks cold and high they go by, not one brow now unbends, None holds out his hand of the band of my fair- weather friends. And how The Spinning-wheel Song sings itself You can almost hear the whirring wheel, and watch it quicken and retard- Once my wheel ran cheerily round, Ran cheerily round from day to day, But now it drags how wearily round, For Owen's gone away. Once I spun soft carolling, 0, Soft carolling, 0 from morn till eve, But since we started quarrelling, oh! 'Tis silently I weave. How arch, too, and how true, and how charm- ing is Trottin' to the Fair." Trottin' to the fair, Me and Moll Molony, Sated, I declare. On a single J'ltouy, How am I to know that Molly's safe behind, With our heads in oh! that Awkward way inclined? It would, perhaps, be just to say that Mr. Graves is an Anglo-Irish poet, and that not merely because he writes in English instead of H.M.V. The month has brought us many good records. Most noteworthy are three records of Mozart's Requiem Mass, sung by the Philharmonic Choir, conducted by Kennedy Scott. They are exquis- ite, indeed overwhelmingly beautiful in places. Next in importance is a new recording of Bee- thoven's Fifth Symphony. It is played by the Albert Hall Orchestra, under the baton of Landon Gaelic. On one side of his work he is in the tradition of Lover and Lever, in his love of the arch, and the humorous, and the rollicking. He is almost incurably genial. He gives you not the Irishman's notion of himself, but the Englishman's notion of him. And the English- man may have many faults, but he is a bad hater. For the Irishman's notion of himself you must turn to some such book as Mr. Brinsley Macnamara's powerful but sombre and a little jaundiced novel, The Valley of the Squinting Windows." A great book, but it will make you shudder, and you will gladly turn to Mr. Graves' work as a corrective. You can turn to him safely and with confidence; for he is no less true to the genial side of Irish character than Macnamara is to the envious and the spiteful and the cruel. But the songs of Mr. Graves are not joyous and light-hearted through a slavish following of a convention or a tradition. He is not a super- ficial flatterer of the Irish people. His love of them led to the wide reading and research that, stimulating and enriching his natural genius for song, has flowered in such a wealth of lyrics, every one of which is truly Irish in spirit. If he has, on the whole, given us only the cheerful side of the Irish character, he has given us what he found there, and what he awakened there. A man of peace, a worker for peace at a time when even to speak of peace was dangerous, Mr. Graves, must by his own genial, kindly spirit, have drawn forth these traits of the Irish character that he has sung with so much gaiety, and sympathy and melody. This is a book to lift the spirits, and to set the foot beating, and not only the tongue but the heart singing. Industry, and enthusiasm, and the gift of song do not always gain their reward, or if they do it is very often after the bard himself is dead, and cannot hear the praise. But Mr. Graves has had his reward in his lifetime, and has lived to hear his songs on the lips of the people whom he has so long and so warmly loved, and whose nobler and more pleasing qualities he has exalted. THE GRAMOPHONE. Ronald. These records (four in number) are excellent. Other good things are The Harmonious Blacksmith and Dubussy's Cathedrale Engloutie," played bv Mark Ham- bourg; the Eriskay Love Lilt," and Herd- ing Song," sung by Joseph Hislop; Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, played by Lamond; and two records of the Peer Gynt' Suite, played by the Royal Opera House Orchestra.