The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1912-02-23
SINGS HIMSELF TO FREEDOM.
Poems Of An Iowa Life Convict e
Win His Parole

Win His Parole.
Dcs Moinos, Ia. Feb Thames
Stell, a life convict at the Iowa peni.
tentiary at Fort Madison, is to be lib
Grated the coming spring by the state
board of parole and it may be truth.
fully said this young man has sung
himself out OF prison
Stell is Il poet, one whose verse has
attracted the attention of music low
ors throughout the state and the board
has been imrortuned from many sides
to open the cage door for the young
singer
But Stell will not go forth merely
as dreamer. Besides being equip
ped with u trade in the workshops of
the prison lie has been taught to play
the cornet by Warden Sanders. who is
a musician of ability, and Stell is now
a Cornetist of no mean ability
Sent to prison under a life sentence
Stell did not surrender to remorse and
become sullCn. He felt the pathos of
ii and cried
| know the awful chill of stone, the
COnviCts tears.
How blood-yes, life-may not atone
for sins of years.
Full we'll know, and would forget,
the price of sim
And oh, how sweet to know the debt
is nearly in.
But hold-thn debt is never paid; the
record stands.
| The sins of life can never fade as
mankind plans,
The hate, the tears. the walls and
| blood-can Time efface?
Can Hope and Love again rebuild
where thrived disgrace?
But even this first impression OF his
disgrace sung in poetry was overcome
and cheered by his own songs. He
later reveals his reawakening of hope
in poetry that has touched the hearts
of board members. He writes:
The new morns sun. across the way
Had turned nights tears to gold
Had blazed path for blushing day
| Across the dew wet mold,
When !, with prison bars between
My earth, heaven and hell.
Gazed out upon the rise of green
That lies beyond my cell
A fair-haired boy of tender years
Romped DER the velvet sod,
And as | gazed, forbidden tears
| Welled in my eyes-and. God,
The morn, the child, the slope o
green,
The sunlights mellow glow,
Recalled to me a memoried scene.
And joys | used to know.
The memoried scene was of my youth
My childhood and my play,
When all my paths were paved will
truth,
When life was ever gay:
When |, child, unspoiled, unstained
Dreamed life was but a song
But now, ah, now-by sin profaned
| know the price Of wrong
/ steeled my heart (the night cam
Within the prison gate)
TO pay my debt with vOiceless shame
To stifle love with hate:
TO still my sobs, my hopes, my fear!
But when | saw this child
| welcomed back love, hopes and tear!
! mourned, and, mourning, smiled.
And in between his hopes and tear
; Stell has written volume of poetr
that uncovers the emotions of a sens
tive heart Philosophically he receiv
ed the final breaking of love tie
without the prison and did not deig
, to grieVe for the lost. But to the faitl
less woman sent response:
; Your love is vain and dead? All, vel
Go, dear, along your way,
Forgetful of the woven spell
Which was-fOr but a day.
| will not lie and say | weep
, For love of yours, the dead,
, May silence close around its sleep.
Deserted be it's bed
The quickened sense that droops an
dies,
Be it of love or hate.
,, But proves it was a worthless prize
Why should I mourn its fate?
For love or hate with death a-wing.
Or dead for days or years,
t Was, living, but a tortured thing:
And dead not worth my tears
And now he is approaching the tim
when he cali sing song of freedor
for it is understood he is to be turne
again free into the world where all hi
love is dead-free to welcome bac
; love, hopes and tears"
Stell was sentenced for burglary.
, THURSDAY TlDlNGS.