Los Angeles herald., 1905-03-12

iting friends here and who Is en- route
TO the city of Mexico to join her hus-
band.
California claims this gifted woman.
To be sure, she was not born in the
west, but her baby life began in the
middle west when her parents were
crossing the plains to the Golden state.
But of California she has always writ
ten, in California her best work has
been done and to the west has her
allegiance been given since early child
hood days.
Entered Newspaper World
When a slip of girl Madge Morris
entered the newspaper world. To her
fell the work of a reporter who was
sent hther and thither in quest of
stories. And now to every veteran
newspaper writer of San Francisco
and of Sacramento and San Jose the
name of the poetess calls forth un-
bouned praise and admiration and rev.
erance for her gifts.
1.-The Liberty Bell" one Of the most
soul stirring poems of patriotism, made
Mrs. Wagner famous, but there are
scores of other verses which have en-
deared her to her friends and caused
her to be idolized by the reading pub
lie.
Lippincotts Magazine it was who
discovered her. An agent of the maga-
zine was sent to California to see
writer who could compose such verse
as the strong, thrilling description of
the desert. This is what the critics
said was poetry, true, stately, majes-
tic and impressive:''
TO THE COLORADO DESERT
Thou brown, bare-breasted, voiceless mystery,
Hot sphinx of nature, cactus crowned, what
hast thou done?
Uncothed and mute when the groans of
chaos turned
Thy naked burning bosom to the sun.
The mountain silences have speech, the rivers
sing,
Thou answerest never unto anything.
Pink throsted lizards pant in thy slim shade;
The horned-toad runs rustling in the heat;
The shadowy gray coyote, born afraid.
Steals to some brackish spring and laps and
prowls
Away, and howls and howls and howls and
hows,
Until the solitude is shaken with an added
Thy sharp mescal shoots up giant stalk,
Its century of yearning to the sunburnt sky,
And dripS rare honey from the lips
OF yellow waxen flowers and dies.
Some lengthwise sun-dried shapes with feet
and hands
And thirsty mouths pressed on the sweltering
sands,
Mark here and there gruesome. graveless
spot
Where some one drank thy scorching holiness
and is not.
God must have made thee in his anger and
forgot
Fame Travelled to Europe
From this the name of the writer
made it's way across the seas to the
continent, but fame awaited her here.
Mrs. Wagners life has been rather
varied; that is, her life or at least her
experience in literature. She owned
and edited her own paper, the Golden
Era; acted in the capacity of writer
from the state legislature, contributed
scores of articles to the San Francisco
Argonaut, all the time weaving stray
bits of verse which were greedily ac-
ceepted by the leading periodicals of
the United States.
She is a delightful woman to meet.
Quiet, gentle, interesting, with a fund
of ready wit and bubbling 'humor; a
IillHQ TlCIi III pOCIiy dHu III
cences, but free from any trace of the
characteristics of the prominently
successful woman writer. She insists
that she has achieved nothing more
than any other woman could.
But here is another verse or two
she wrote. "It was written" said Mrs.
Wagner, lone evening as l heard a
young mother grooming her little babe
to sleep; written with tears streaming
down my cheeks for a little one of my
own which had gone away.
POEMS Acceptance Surprise
without realizing what 1 was doing,
ran across to the postoffice and mailed
the manuscript to the Argonaut. 1
did not want to destroy it and feared
some one would see 1t and pass un-
favorably upon it. Next day, however,
/ felt that 1t was not worthy of pub
lication, so 1 took the postmaster-a
dear old soul-into my confidence and
asked him to regain letter addressed
in my handwriting to the northern pub
lication 1 was then in Sah Diego. But
the mail had gone. This is the story
as it appeared in the Argonaut the
following week over my signature:
hear her rocking the baby
Her room is just next TO mine
And | fancy | feel the dlmpled arms
That round her neck entwine,
As she rocks and rocks the baby
In the room just next to mine.
hear her rocking the baby
Each day when the twilight comes,
And l know there's world Of blessing and
In the "baby bye" she hams.
| can see the restless fingers
Playing with ''mamma's rings"
And the sweet little smiling pouting mouth
That TO hers In kissing clings,
As she rocks and rocks the baby
And dreams as she rocks and sings.
hear her rocking the baby.
Slower and slower now,
And l know she is leaving her good might kiss
On its eyes and checks and brow.
From her rocking, rocking, rocking,
/ wonder would she start,
Could she know, throw the wall between u.s.
She Is rocking on my heart
While my empty arms are aching
For form they may not press,
And my emptier heart is breaking
In its desolate loneliness.
l list Ia the rocking, rocking,
In ha a mi