The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-03-01

|"NHE death of Joaquin Miller at the
age of Il, leaves no American poet
I his equal. We remember him as he
first appeared above the literary horizon
He broke upon us from the far west as
the Poet of the Serras. His first poem
was "Arazona," thus misspelt. He came
to the conventional East with the affec-
tation of a cowboy, his trousers tucked in
his high boots, and his long, brown hair
rolling up over his shoulders, and odd
stories were told of his unconventional
doings at functions where he was en-
tertained. His name he had changed
from the absurd classical Cincinnatus to
the Mexican Joaquin. But it did not take
long for him to visit barber and tailor
and soon he was dressed and shod like
the rest of us.
But there was very little of the wild
west in his poems or prose sketches. His
pen did not assume the style of the rude
John Hay or Bret Harte, men who per-
haps taught Kipling to use the dialect of
Tommy Atkins. Joaquin Miller's taste
was not rude, and he did not care to en-
bellish splendid ignorance with rime. His
topics were those of common humanity
love, courage, truth, hono4 their lessons
told as other poets have told them. vigor-
ously, decently and with an unusual ma
tive sense of the sweetness of honeyed
words. The sense of verbal music was re-
marksbly developed in him. His style was
copied from no poetic model; but he was
stepped in the splendid imagery and
stories of the Bible.
The western magazines. not knowing
that of which they speak, have been ac-
customed to assert that Joaquin Miller
never received due recognition in this
country as a poet, except in California. 1t
gives the lie to this charge against east
ern editors to state that nearly 80 years
ago, in two years alone, the Independent
published 13 poems from his pen, and
these were followed by long series of
descriptive prose articles. Here Is one of
the most vigorous of his poems. printed
in the Independent. March %. 1881:
TO RUSSIA.
who tanned thy lawless Tartar blood?
What David bearded in his den
The Russian bear in ages when
You strobe your black, unbridled steed,
A Sklfl-cidQ SdVd6t VI tHc StctpS!
Why. one who now sits low and weeps,
Why, one who now walls out to you
The Jew, the homesss, hated jew!
Who girt the thews of your young prime?
Why, who but Moses shaped your
course
And bound your fierce. divided force,
United, down the grooves of Time?
Your mighty millions all today
|
Who taught. all histories to you?
The Jew, the hated. homeless Jew!!
Who taught your tender Bible tales
OF honey lands, of milk and wine
or happy, peaceful Palestine,
or Jordan's holy harvest-vales?
Who gave the patient Christ, 1 say?
who gave you Christian creed? Yea, yea.
Who gave your very God to you?
The Jew! The Jew! The hated Jew!
But if the Independent was for years
SO partial to Joaquin Miller. to prepare
his manuscript for the press was the task
of the united editorial board. He was
hardly the product of the schools. though
not uneducated, and he could not SPELL
and his writing was the most careless and
jIlegible that ever came to this office.
His prose was harder to decipher than
his poetry, and 1t was the editors duty
to guess and rewrite with pencil many
word over the line to save the compost
tor from profanity. When Bishop Gill
bert Haven once climbed to our compos-
ing room he remarked to a compositor,
"You are pretty near heaven up here"
Nearer than you will ever get If you
send such copy was the reply. Horace
Greeley's cacography is famous, or in
famous; but it was not SO hard to read
because he formed every letter after his
own system, and you only had to- learn
his alphabet. Dean stanleys manuscript
was q fearful puzzle to our editors and