ALBERT CLYMER. BORN: FAIRFIELD CO., O., DEC. 10, 1827. MR. CLYMER now resides on a farm near Morley, Iowa. He has issued a little volume of poems entitled Echoes of the Woods, consisting of songs, ballads and lyrics which in a charming manner carry the author back to the days of boyhood and young manhood in ALBERT CLYMER. his Ohio home. The true spirit of the muse pervades the entire volume. He has had a strong partiality for poetry from his earliest recollection. Mr. Clymer has several volumes of verse ready for publication, and devotes his time mainly to writing and doing light farm work. POETRY AS COMPARED TO PROSE. True poetry of thought, if it is well expressed, In prose, blank verse, or rhyme, as suits men best. Dull nature wakes from lethargy and sleep; It thrills the soul with beauty's vital charm; In rhyming verse, we've measured time, mean. We here will not affirm, nor yet deny, We hope from time to time, as shall appear This fruit may, then, be cracked, and tasted too, all round, [sound. And cracked again; remaining fresh and EVOLUTION. Wonderfully long, indeed, Haeckel's chain, Which gave the moneron two legs and a brain, From the depth of the sea the moneron came; Haeckel the scientist gave it a name;As small as a pin's head, a globular cell; After ages to crawl, snail-like, from a shell. An infusory, neither male nor female, Acquires a back-bone, and fins, and a tail. A thing without nerve, or muscle, or wish, Is changed to a polyp, a mollusk, a fish. Hatched by the sun from the spawn of the frog, [wog. Reigns queen in a mud-puddle, Miss PolliA tortoise, a monkey, four legs recollect; A man with two hands and a mind walks erect. Some millions of years requiring to span The chasm between the monkey and man. The billions betwixt his first and last state And the number of times he did transmi grate No man from such data can calculate. The existance of man, how brought about, They ne'er can explain if God is left out. So scientists fail, with all their great skill, To solve the great problem; aye fail thus they will. God says he made man;-of the ground 'tis confessed As good, when first formed, as is Haeckel's best. Those naturalists sure have been to great pains, To prove that they sprang from a race minus brains. Such teachers as they should exit the hive; By nature's great law ..the fittest survive." Since they from the spawn of the rena were hatched, And by them the bull-frogs as croakers are matched, ..From the form of the arm, and the length of the thigh," They sprang from the species the gentry would fry. They judge of the class, order and strain, And spinal column, they inference draw. When they went crawling, or stood upon end. The reptile, the grub, the molecule source; They draw their conclusions from data of course; If valves or bivalves; we're told that those seers Calculate back for a billion of years; To prove evolution must have produced man, Without a creative intelligent plan. Infidels madly the bible have spurned: "Tis only the present in which they're concerned: Trusting their reason they're going astray, As others will do who take the same way. 'Tis clear, quite clear, very clear to my mind, Those men, as the frogs, to leap are inclined; Equally good at the game of leap-frog, They jump at conclusions and croak in a bog. WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH. Of poison drugs and watering; The above jingle may be read from top to bottom, and vice versa. JOHN JACOB DICKSON. BORN: SCOTT Co., IND., SEPT. 8, 1826. WORKING on the farm when young at six dollars per month, Mr. Dickson afterward learned the cooper trade. In 1850 he removed to West Grove, Iowa, where he now resides, buying his farm from the government. In 1864 Where Freedom feels no license or restraint, But I am under law e'er since my birth For love has no opposing foe above To mar its Eden joy from which there springs A peace that Earth's contending sects approve, Then take the sword and disobey the Lord of love. In memory I recall my hopeful days (There was a buoyant spirit once within, And brood o'er youth's contented, cheerful ways, So full of joy and innocent of sin; For then the world, with its eternal din Of creeds, oppression, strife for help,and war, Who yields a willing soul, whose mind can scan TO A BUDDING POETICAL GENIUS. In prosy lines devoid of art, And help you on to glory. If you have genius, rare and great, No rule can be your bar, Shakespeare made his own law of verse, And Bonaparte of war. None but the great dare step aside From Custom's iron rule. The common mind must follow her, Or be esteemed a fool. No genius now upon the stage, Whose great inventions show To all the smallness of the age, In things it does not know. As Webster said, there's room above," Where lawyers great may go, And so it is in ev'ry thing; There is a crowd below. It is our wish you may succeed, Your feet" the measure" fit exact, 66 70 LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. Write from your heart - you'll not cater To kings or reigning wrongs- When woeing for the muses' grace- Know this one line of sense is worth, THREE HUNDRED HEROES. On come the legions of the Gray- gale The fearful news has spoken. O, for ten minutes more of time To get the cannon into line, And stop by rapid shelling, The onward charge of Jackson's corps, day: They turned the tide of glory. The charging legions of the Gray, Were by three hundred held at bay Until the guns were sighted; Then on they came with louder yell, But they were stopped by shot and shell And Jackson's charge was blighted, This praying, fighting, brightest star Was shot the danger braving. Is where the lead is flying. It is the soldiers' hallowed ground” Among the dead or dying. *John Bright, (England's Quaker Statesman), resigned his place in Gladstone's ministry, because of his war in Africa, but held that our war for liberty and union was justifiable. The law is a terror to evil doers," and must have power to enforce it. Our war was a police force, to enforce the law, and prevent anarchy. .. PUT UP THY SWORD." There is a field where just men work, A high untrodden plain, Above the jostling crowd below, That strive for present gain. Where men by love of truth inspired That God's eternal truth may have The doctors wrangle through the years The party men have fed the flock To be the devil's deed? Make no more creeds in Jesus' name While ye are slaying men, LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. For all your bloody fields proclaim ..Ye must be born again." Your task is greater now than when O may ye build a new Mayflower Then saints would put His armor on O, for a Garrison to lead This moral movement on, To stand and wait for God to work, Some great propelling power? Men see this wrong from age to age, O, sluggish soul arise and work You may not live to see The victory of the Prince of peace. • Written in 1880, when the theological, if not all lineal descendants of the Pilgrims, in their then late Council at St. Louis had chosen a committee of twenty-five to prepare a creed or interpretation of the Bible. THE QUAKERS. A sincere purpose to do right A walking by the Inward Light Protects the soul from sin. George Fox, the Friend, built on this rock. The building stands secure; The only sect the world's rude shock Has left unstained and pure. They sought the Heavenly Father's care, No thronging crowds around; They bowed their heads in silent prayer, And that is.. holy ground." No titled men - no useless forms Within their building found; No unpaid toil, no clash of arms, Ah, there is "holy ground." 71 Though men of peace they charged upon The citadel of sin; Moved by the Holy Spirit on, They conquered foes within. They make no compromise to gain The world's admiring throng; O, Prince of Peace, O God of Love, JACOB A. ALFORD, BORN: KENDALL CO., ILL., FEB. 16, 1865. As editor and publisher of the Colfax Leader, Mr. Alford has written extensively for numerous papers other than his own. In 1889 he went out of the publishing business, and is now a minister of the Methodist church, which profession he intends to follow the remainder of his life. A NEW YEAR'S CALL. In his spring-bottom chair, the editor sat, All of a sudden the door opened wide, And surrounded your servant on every side, The editor thought of the wife at his home, Who was kneading the small loaf of bread, When she heard of the call, in wrath she would foam, And apply the old mop to his head. Call again pretty girls, it is true we are wed, But the lad on the stool you can woo, And while you are sparking we'll just bow our head, We remember when we were there too. |