Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1878-06-26
mn. RRyANr's LAST POEM.


Mr.. Bryant's literary life extended over pc
Rod of seventy -four years. In 1904 at the age of
10, he printed his first poem in a Massachusetts
country paper; and on Feb. %, of the present
year he wrote his last poem, as contribution to
the washngton's birthday number of the Sunday
School Times, of Philadelphia. The memory of
Washington has never received so worthy trb-
ute from m American poet as the six noble stan
xas given below:
THE TwENrY-sECoND OF FEBRUARY.
ri WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
Pale is the February sky.
And brief the midday e sunny hours;
The wind-swept forest seems TO sigh
For the sweet time of leaves and flowers.
Yet has no month prouder day,
Not even when the summer broods
Ger meadows in their fresh array,
Or autumn tints the glowing woods.
For this chill season now again
Brings. in its annual rounds. the morn
When, greatest Of the sons of men,
Our glorious Washington was born.
Lo, where, benerth an Icy shield,
Calmly the mighty Hudson nowsl
BY snow-cad fell and frozen field
Broadening the lordly river goes.
The widest storm that sweeps through space,
And rends the oak with sudden force,
Can raise no ripple on his face,
Or slacken his majestic course.
Thus, mid the wreck of thrones, shall live
Unmarried, undimmed, our hero's fame,
And Year, succeeding years shall give
Increase OF honors to his name.
FROM the NON. Z. n. STILES.
EDITOR OF THE COURIER Having
been absent for several days my at
tentiOn is, for the first time called to
the contents of your article appearing
in your controversy with the STATE
Regtster, in the COURIER Of the 18th
One would suppose that my con.
duct throughout the entire expert.
ence which our local politics has un.
dergOne for the last three months and
throughout this entire business
would have been sufficient to exemp,
me in the controversy into which you
and the Register have fallen, and ir
which I have had no hand whatever
from the evident slur which you, il
the article referred to have seen fit to
throw upon me. In that article yor
say:
"If the Register folk will come to this city ant
and learn the truth about Hon. Il. H. stiles can
didacy. We should be most happy and conten
20 submit all to those who know, here at home
the facts. 1t Is most singular If our silence ha
power to wither the reputation OF men and pre-
vent their successful candidacy"
If this were the first inuendo in re
spect to this matter, l might, tor tn,
sake of peace, seem not to see nor tt
understand, but as it is not, my self
repect will not longer allow me to re
main silent, and 1 now call upon 70,
, to Ego to the bed rock" and expos
, to the public view the damaging fact
respecting myself or my character, I,
: which you have 90 mysteriously allu
ded, and in this matter ask the i'm
/ munity Of no personal privilege, how
ever sacred, respecting any fact con
corning my private, my personal o
; my political life. 1 am willing tina
all shall be probed, to see if sufficien
= can be extracted therefrom to justif
, what at least seems an underhande,
attempt to injure me. 1 have NO oh
lection to your playing shuttlecoc
and battledoor over my head, but j
| am to be stricken by passing blov
| from game in which am not engaa
|, ed, want to be stricken fairly an,
manfully. EDw'D. II. STILES.
June Goth, 1878.