"At  such  a  time  Art  sickens  through  the  world,
Song  slumbers  with  lethargic  pinions  furled."

It  was  only  during  his  early  life  that  John  Hay  thought
seriously  of  being  a  poet.  The  desire  was  clear  in  his  under-
graduate days  at  Brown,  and  in  the  "Poet  in  Exile"  letters  of
1858-60.  It  was  still  manifest  in  his  war-time  pieces,  notably
in  "Rhymes,"  —  from  which  I  have  just  quoted,  —  written,
I  believe,  in  the  White  House.  It  is  vain  to  conjecture  what
position  he  would  have  held  in  the  world  of  letters  if  he  had
followed  the  inclinations  of  his  youth.  Fate  took  the  choice
out  of  his  hands  and  turned  the  bard  to  first  a  writer,  then  a
maker,  of  history.  Though  thoroughly  suppressed,  the  poetic
side  of  my  father's  nature  ran  as  an  undercurrent  throughout
his  last  years,  and  helped  him  in  the  many  serious  problems
he  was  called  upon  to  solve.  But  for  the  statesman  in  him,  he
would  have  been  more  a  poet:  but  for  the  poet  in  him,  he
would  have  been  less  a  statesman.
CLARENCE  LEONARD  HAY.
THE   PIKE   COUNTY   BALLADS


JIM   BLUDSO

OF    THE    PRAIRIE    BELLE

WALL,  no!  I  can't  tell  whar  he  lives,

Becase  he  don't  live,  you  see;
Leastways,  he 's  got  out  of  the  habit

Of  livin'  like  you  and  me.
