Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/561

ORPHEUS EYERTS. In the Spring of the year 1856, an octavo pamphlet of eighty pages, printed at the office of the Times newspaper in La Porte, Indiana, introduced to the literary world " Onawequah, an Indian Legend, and other poems." In the same season of the suc- ceeding year another pamphlet, containing ninety-two pages, was printed at the same office. Its title was " The Spectral Bride and other poems," by 0. Everts. Kind notices of " Onawequah " had induced its author to formally acknowledge his poems, and issue a second collection. The leading poems in these pamphlets exhibit both poetic feeling and poetic art, but one not elaborated with care sufficient to make them memorable. Some of the minor poems in Mr. Everts's collections have been widely circulated and much admired. Mr. Everts is a native of Indiana. He was born at Liberty, Union county, De- cember eighteenth, 1826. His father, who had been a physician in Cincinnati when it was a village, settled in Indiana before it was organized as a State. The son en- joyed limited common school advantages, but was a diligent reader, and, having de- termined to embrace his father's profession, was graduated as a Doctor of Medicine when he was nineteen years old. He practiced medicine and surgery for several years, but having, meantime, developed a poetic faculty, abandoned his profession for editorial life. He was editor of the Times, La Porte, Indiana, in 1857, when he ac- cepted an appointment, under President Buchanan, as Register of a United States Land Office, and has since resided at Hudson, Wisconsin. Mr. Everts is an amateur artist of merit, and hopes to paint poetry as well as write it, when a few years of thoughtful experience have given him skill and confidence. TIME. " Out upon Time ! " — said the Lord of rhyme, With a lordly lip, in tones sublime ! Out upon Time ! We say not so — Time is our friend, and never our foe ! He calms our fears, and dries our tears, And plucks the sting from many a woe. Time is the father of many years ! Many are dead — and many more Shall follow the shadows gone before. Yet weep not, for lo ! death only deprives, That Time may find room and food for new lives. Rail not at Time ! for our trust In him Fills the beaker of hope to the brim ! Bubbles of joy like foam on the wine Promise us nectar — bumpers divine ! We drink, and we drink, And our glasses clink, But never are empty, never sink : For a generous hand hath Father Time, And his vintages gush in every clime ! (545 ) 35