The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-06-29
Remarkably Successful Work
Read on Both Continents.
POEMS WHICH PLEASE
The First Edition Printed in
the Year 1885.
The First Review Was Pub
lished in the State Journal

likely 10 appear O6IOTG the G1OSG "a bAAO
year. One of the editions came from
A. G. McClurg & Co., and two came
from English presses. The handsomest
edition was gotten out in London with
out Mr.. Wares knowledge. The same
is true of the paper bound edition pub
lished in England
This volume of rhymes by Ironqull
was first issued by the late Thomas j.
7. ELAN and was printed by Crane in
1885. The first review of Ironquin was
written by George r. Peck for the
State Journal and printed in the issue
of this paper dated December II, 1885.
The review is reprinted below from the
State Journal of that date:
EUGENE WARES POEMS.
There may be people in the east who
think Kansas produces only corn and
cattle, but the jewellers on the pralrles,
while not unmindful of material things,
have always been a reading people. Nor
has Kansas been backward in the field
of authorship. In many respects her
literature has been remarl<a ble-char-
acteristic of her people and of their sur
rCnndings. Bret Harte fOuh1ed new
school of poetry, mostly in dialect, for
the Pacific coast. The pecuharities of
our Kansas civilization are as striking
as those of California, and 1t would not
be strange if SOT7e genius should arise
to sing the songs and tell the stories of
the prairies, as Bret Harte did of the
mining camps of the Sierras.
Readers of the old kansas Maya
zine have always believed in the posi-
bilittes of Kansas as a, literary field,
and why should they not? What the
brilliant pen of John James ingalls,
might have produced if the senate had
not stolen him from us, no one can tell
Henry King, James w. Steele, Noble
PrentiS and Mr.. Howe. the author of
THE Story of a Country Town." have
done excellent work, which we all hope
is yet to be surpassed by future efforts
of their own genius.
And now we have another Kansas
book; one which we were all prepared
to heartily welcome. 1t is but truth to
say the binding is not particularly
book is the least important part of it.
The publisher, Mr.. KeIlam, deserves
the thanks of all good Kansans for Civ
ing US the book. and we shall not quar-
rel with him, because Rhymes of Iron
quill' do not wear as good clothes as
they ought. Indeed, we half suspect
that Mr.. Ware cares very little what
people may think of the external APP
pearance of his volume. The philos-
Cphy of Paint Creek goes deeper than
the binding. Inside, the book is a
excellent, and, what is still more graf
flying to the reader, the matter is
bright, original and often beautiful
The humorous poems occupy a large
part of the book, and we think it would
have been better in an artistic point of
view, if they had been separated from
the serious portion. But that is a mere
fault of arrangement, and has nothing
to do with the merits of the poems as
such.
There are many tests of poetry
rhythm, rhyme, measure, sentiment and
other elements-but after all one can
seldom tell what it is in a verse that
makes it beautiful or pleasing. Words
worth's famous line,
THE light that never was on sea or land"
10, til,
preston, and yetno one knows just what
it means If you anaIyze it, you see at
once that such d light must be purely
imaginary and contrary to all scientific
principles. Mr. Ware would probably
blush if he should be introduced in any
company as poet. He is a lawyer, and
for some reason which we are unable
to understand, prefers to rest his repu-
tatiOn on that basis. But to our mind
it is plain that whatever may be his
legal requirements, nature intended him
for something better than the conten-
lions of court room. The man ought
not to be a lawyer who could write the
lines,
THE soul doth often seem to be-
In sunshine which it cannot see.''
They are from that exquisite little re-
ply to Judge McFarland's open Let
ter" and are as it seems to US worthy
of any poet who ever wrote. The idea
of the SOUL enveloped in light in sun
shine, which is yet invisible to the soul.
is one of truly pOetical beauty, and if
written by Tennyson or Browning would
have been marked at once as a gem
All kanSanS know the 'WaSherwonan'S
Song" one of the most touching little
ballads which it was ever our fortune
to meet. Its half dozen verses contain
such a sermon as we do not often hear
in the churches where our best society
enjoy religion. Notwithstanding Mr.
wares disclaimer OF any belief in the
miracles of DID, this little poem tells
of a miracle which makes a life of toll
and drudgery bright and cheerfuI-not
sometimes, but always. There is one
Serenade,'' which possesses an indefina-
bic charm, partly from the beauty of
the language and partly from the sad
hopeless way in which the unanswera BILE
question of mans destiny recurs, as it
does so often, in Mr.. Wares poems. 1t
begins with a picture:
TN the pale light
1zy,+b The. The angel iE1il, of the night
stars
Plato tried in vain to answer:
Eternal stiffness keep?
Shall pulseless dust enclose a dreamless
Or shall we hear
A. Those songs so old and dear;
Upon our waking ears
The choruses of spheres?"
One of the best of Mr.. Wares poems
Is The Aztec City, strange and weird
to be sure, but of remarka BILE power of
description. THE Child of Fate is an
other little poem of singular power.
The reader will be struck in reading
Mr.. Wares book by the very decided
contrast between his humorous and his
serious poems. When he is funny, he
Is very funny; but in almost all his
other poems there is a. deep undertone
OF sadness. He is troubled-as who is