Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/292

 Te Deums may roll in the gloom of old arches,

Where the white-handed preacher coquettes with his God,

But Truth finds her own in long battles and marches,

And the flowers will shine on that tear-sprinkled sod.

When the fire has gone out and the vigil is ended,

Poor Mary may sleep with the loved and the leal,

For the stars will mount guard over the ashes she tended,

And the beauty of morning return there to kneel.

Some of these predictions have certainly been realized ere this. "Poor Mary" no doubt sleeps, as it was said she would, and the flowers, if happily left to the laws of, nature, perhaps regularly "shine o'er that tear-sprinkled sod." But not least of the tributes paid to such marked fidelity, is the immortal chaplet of verse which Oregon's truest and best poet has thus paid to the memory of an unfortunate member of an unfortunate race, and Jacksonville Mary now seems as imperishably enshrined in literature as are Pocahontas and Minnehaha.

When the poem was first tendered me to peruse, I did not catch its full beauty, owing to the difficulty I had in making out Sam's excellent handwriting, and it was not until we obtained a printed copy that my admiration rose to a full sense of its superior excellence. But the printed copy was a long time reaching us. When a copy finally did reach us, it showed that a portion of the second verse, for some unaccountable reason, had been left out, and it is not likely that anyone at this time has the full poem in his possession.

With the work of writing original verse now thoroughly under way, there was no occasion for trying to encourage the poet to greater diligence. His application to work gave assurance of a speedy accomplishment of the task he had in hand. He turned off poem after poem without any attempt at intermission or rest. "The Mother's Vigil" was speedily followed by "Milliarium Aureum," "The First Fall of Snow," "Sayonara," "Jump-off-Joe," "Williamsburg," "Forever," "Love Will Surely Come Tomorrow" and "Campfires of the Pioneers," till he had a creditable sized volume ready for the printer. But to find a publisher there was the rub. Like