Famous Single Poems
got home I wrote it, 'There was ease in Casey's manner,' etc., and the thirty-two lines I sent to Mr. O. P. Caylor, of the New York Sporting Times, of which I held his red card credentials as correspondent." He adds that the poem appeared in the Sporting Times within the following week.
In another statement D'Vys says, "It went bearing the word 'Anon.' as a signature because of the great antipathy held by my stern parent toward all things literary." As D'Vys says he was born in 1860, and was consequently twenty-six years old in 1886, one might suppose he would have somewhat outgrown his awe of the stern parent. But apparently he never did—at least he never wrote any more poetry!
Unfortunately no file of the Sporting Times of 1886 is known to exist, and Mr. Caylor has long been dead. Also unfortunately D'Vys's evidence was lost. His story is that in 1897, while he was ill, the Boston Globe (the same paper whose margin, by a singular coincidence, had recorded the first draft of "Casey" eleven years before!) printed the poem, with five additional stanzas, and attributed it to Ernest L. Thayer. Being too ill to go himself, he sent his mother around to the Globe office next day with his one and only copy of the Sporting Times containing the eight original stanzas, and also two letters from Mr. Caylor confirming
116
