The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-10-21

true to the life which It depicts as James
Whitcomb Riley's Hoosier poems are. One
stanza of 1t is this:
Ter think dat he raise en- BON heah, never
been larnt in school
Dat all he knowed WIZ de OIL home road en- de
| ways er de Georgy mule;
En- den ter jine de army, en- shoulder his gun
| good lam!
| We wuz proud dat day wen he march away wild
| de Cullud Regiment Ban!
Look at 'im!" Dat what his nanny say)
Hep ter de right, en- hep!
| He my own son, wild his guy ment gun,
| En- he step lax white man step!
Perhaps as Characteristic bit Of verse
as any in the part of the book devoted
to pure English is IAN Old Fashioned
Gentleman" The first stanza is as fol-
lows:
can old-fashioned gentle,nan''-thats what they
''The last Of his race'-like a ghost from the
dead,
He seemed to the many, among them he passed
In honor-a gentleman born, to the last!
| IT was seen by the way that he carried his head
BY his dignified mien and his soldierly tread;
| BY his scorn of all offers Of wealth and fame
| by his robe-never soiled in the shadows OF
IAN old-fashioned gentlernan''-that' what they
| said
'The last Of his race''-like a ghost from the
dead!
1t will be seen that Mr.. Stanton has
the defects Of his virtues" and that the
facility of rhyming that is his has mill
| tated against any great depth or finish
to his work. The charm of the book is
not in Its literary quality SO much as in
the sunny and gentle spirit that breathes
through it. The contents, like the cover,
remind one of blue and balmy Georgian
| skies. One is not disposed to be criti-
cal of Cherokee rose, or of rhyme that
sings itself. II the author tends to make
many OF his poems the mere repetition
| of a phrase or catchword, the phrase is
musical and suggestive of pleasant things,
and that is his style. Frank Stanton's
verse could not be made over without
spelling it. indianapolis: The Bowen
Merrill Company
| One of the cleverest books of campaign
songs ever written is Songs of the G. O.
p" which is the work of some unknown
poet who signs himself by two Greek let
tiers. The little volume is illustrated in
caricature by Will H. Chandlee, and the
| illustrations are as good as the text,
which is saying much for them. They are
not likely; to make certain Republican
leaders any happier. for the author and
the cartoonist are alike very outspoken
in their ironical remarks on the pecul-
iarities Of these leaders. Grosvenor ap-
pears as bland and placid goat chewing
party statements, and the poet thus ad
dresses him:
IT'S the digestion which betrays your kind,
4 And bids US stand aghast and wondering
At strength of stomach and at strength of mind,
For you and goats can swallow anything.
i 1t cannot be pleasing to any gentleman
| to find himself figuring in the public
prints as William Capricornus. and per-
haps 1t is as we'll that the lyrist masked
his identity under the symbols Phi Zeta."
A little further on Mckinley appears as
gentle child carefully grooming an i'm
mense hog labeled Trusts" which is
feeding from the public Treasury. One
Of the sweetest morsels in the feast Of
reason set forth in these pages is the
poem supposed to be recited by John
| Wanamaker, and its only defect is that
| II is too long to quote.
| Roosevelt of course, comes in for some
serious reproof, and the poem on him is
headed THE Fighting Tenth" 1t runs as
| follows:
These Afric troops must calmly view
His buncombe and his boast;
He trails his g-time honors through
The land from coast TO coast!
And "Mistah'' Johnsing's song is cut
1t seems, dark thrown shame
A negro might steal chickens. but
He wouldn't fitch his fame!
Attorney General Griggs figures as
knight-errant who sought to Stay an octo-
pus. with this result:
When they returned from towns and farms
To what had come of the awful fight
They found the octopus and the knight
Sound asleep in each others arms 7
And he vowed to the world he had proven thus
That he wasn't afraid of the octopus.
This is what Eagan gets:
You may break, you may shatter. the If you
will,
But the scent of the will cling to II still.
.-.- Moore.
And the case is the same, though the theme less
polite is
With that queer little beast Of the genus mephitis
The beginning Of another Roosevelt song
is this:
Shall Germany's bold lord alone
Adopt the egomaniac's tone
''Meinself und Gottr'
His modesty seems strange to me,