Wormley

dreams just as Reilly went off to war. In Patton's Third Army, totally heart broken, the young soldier lost himself, threw himself, into the glorious battles of the world at war. He married a cause, Patton's cause. See 'Violins of Autumn'. Many years later, Reilly married the woman who had been the dream girl of his childhood fancy. They courted without her ever realizing the degree to which he had been in love with her as a young man. McGuiness gives this romance two very interesting slants. One draws from his own tragedy in "Faded Memories". The other taps the years he spent as a sailor in merchant fleets, a nautical vantage in "He Winked ". The settled years that McGuiness spent with Mr. Reilly ended with Reilly's death. The toast to this friend is, as far as we know, the last selection not dealing with the throes of Ireland, although several of the older poems were revised to fit this man's memory. Richard Reilly was an amateur historian whose pursuit of the details of war reflects in the content of some of the best of McGuiness's works. The 'Empty Dance' was written from notes Reilly used for a lecture given at a meeting of The Daughters of the American Revolution. It was a lecture on the plight of the men who fought in World War I. Having seen the actual notes, consisting of just lists of statistics such as tons of rations, numbers of trench foot casualties, metal requirements of the war, and such, I cannot imagine how the imagery of that poem emerged. But then, I am not McGuiness. The Violins of Autumn : This follows rather closely on the events immediately before, during and after the "break out" of the third army. It is a startling retelling from the soldier's psyche. One wonders how the poet got that deeply into his friend's mind to literally become him. See also 'Winked'. Note, again, the marriage metaphor as depicting duty and dedication. Empty Dance : The great war, WW 1, was also the lonely war, the war of endless trenches and filth. What would an archaeologist think, if the diggings