Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/25

 Glenwood Cemetery, at Washington, D. C, there is a modest monument marking the last resting place of one John Luckey McCreery, and on it, under the dates of birth and death, appear the following lines:

No doubt other tombstones scattered up and down the land bear these same lines, for they were once unbelievably popular, but the one at Washington stands above the grave of the man who claimed to be their author, who fought to establish that claim for more than forty years, and who finally died sick at heart, knowing that he had failed. There have been other men who have written one famous poem; but McCreery stands unique, for his poem brought him nothing but ridicule and disillusion. And no more striking proof ever existed of how difficult it is for truth to overtake error, once error gets a start.