Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/510

 Doc. and his fair bride, may their lives be strewn with pleasing joys, their conjugal relations be those of uninterrupted pleasures"; 2, a dialect poem of three verses called "Falls City" by Ozias Sampson; 3. An obituary in rhyme.

This employment of poetry in folk ways was extensive, and, by way of further example of poetry in the hands of the people, "Peter the Poet" signed himself so in sending news letters to the Democratic Times, Jacksonville, in 1888, and the Klamath County Star, Linkville, in 1889. In 1886 the Oregonian referred to N. W. Dee as "Oregon's Philosopher-Poet," who said of himself: "I think I am a true poet, because poesy with me is a labor of love. I would rather compose a poem any day than saw a cord of wood."

Two specialized classes of poets—humorists and columnists—will be considered in later chapters, and the stimulus given to poetry by the hospitality of editors is indicated in a general way in the chapter on literary magazines and book publishers.

Perhaps enough has now been said to show that poetry was in good repute in Oregon from 1850 to 1900 and that it is such a situation which causes the rise of poets—many poets, of whom a few will be good.

A prolific instance of topical verse nas been mentioned, when the drowning of a young woman at Long Beach in 1880 brought out 20 melancholy poems. The present composition, having, as will be seen, a good deal of merit, was inspired by the reported marriage of the Hermit of the Siskiyous—Andrew J. Walls, a Southern Oregon character of some renown, also known as the Hero of the Green Siskiyous. The poem was published in the Ashland Tidings in 1878 and was reprinted in the West Shore in February of that year. It was good enough for the author to claim but he gave it to the world anonymously, possibly in discreet modesty in case the Hermit might not like its sentiments.