The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-10-11

spired by the superb scenery of that state.
He was born in southern Illinois, his faith
er's farm being II homestead which the
elder Warman had taken up after his serv-
ice in the Mexican war There i'll his
childhood he lived amid those rude sur
roundings which characterized the early
settlers of the far west There was not
much chance for culture, but there was
such freedom as developed rather than
dwarfed originality of mind.
When a lad, Warman attended n log
schoolhouse wherein the seats were made
of split slabs and the desks fashioned from
the same stuff, and it was while he was
little fellow that he surprised his teacher
and his mates by reading an original poem
which he called THE Last Day of School {"
Young Warman was bred for II farmer, and
when he was just about of age, having say
$1,000, he was tempted into the field
speculation and had dreams of becomi
an operator in wheat An experience
two weeks shattered the ambition and d.
sipated his fortune, and then he turned hi
lace to the west. In Colorado, first rs
workman in the smelter works and after
ward in the railway shops at Salida, h
spent some years, and having been fasci-
mated by what he had seen of the life of a
locomotive engineer he served for time
as fireman and afterward became an en-
gineer upon the Denver and Rio Grande
railroad, his run being for the greater part
through the most majestic region of Colo.
RADIO.
Very severe exposure brought on an at
tack of sciatic rheumatism, which com
PEELED Mr.. Warman to give up his voca.
ton, and perhaps partly to that we owe
this promising force i'll later American lit
erature. He had, while running his en-
CINE, written Il poem which was published
IN an engineers newspaper called The
Double Header, and which was widely cop.
led. He went into journalism, publishing
a railway paper called The Frog, and after
ward daily paper ut Creede-thc Creole
Chronicle-in which he is now interested.
One of the poems which was very widely
copied appeared i'll that paper, one stauza
OF which is as follows:
While the world is filled with sorrow
And hearts must break and bleed.
It's day all day in the daytime
There is no night in Creole.
Another poem widely copied was written
upon the occasion of his first visit to New
York and was suggested by an incident
winch he saw near Delmonico's famous
place:
AL rank and thick the thistles stand
To choke the springing corn.
vice plucks the rose with redeemed hand,
While virtue gets the thorn.
lie had seen two tired out shopgirls walk
ing home to save car fare while woman
splendidly dressed, but whose appearance
suggested a life of evil associations, passed
them upon the sidewalk and entered car
riage, whose coachman and driver were in
livery, and drove away.
One of his poems is as refreshing as
mountain Hover, one stanZa of which reads:
God is good 10 make the mountains,
The valleys and the hills,
Put the rose upon the cactus,
And the ripple Oh the rlls
Mr.. Warman wrote one poem which is
now, 1t Is sale TO say, familiar to almost
every railway engineer in the land one
stanZa q which is rs follows:
"fwould he sweet To know when we're laid TO
rest,
With our hands folded silently over our breast,
1hat woman wo"d come TO oar grave once
year,
Bringing wreaths OF howcrs-that woman's
tears
Would dau!?en the dust on the graves OF thos.,
Who have lived and died in their overcothes.
+. j. EDWARDS