Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1899 — To a Poet. [ARTICLE]

To a Poet.

To learn poetry “for repetition" !• doubtless a means of cultivating a knowledge of literature, but schoolboys sometimes regard the authors of poems learned as taskmasters and personal enemies. This view Is amusingly expressed in a letter which was found among the papers of the venerable German poet Gelbel. It was written to him by some schoolboys of Lubeck, find is signed “Karl Beckmann, 11. tOaase.” The letter is printed in Literature. After stating that two boys bad been flogged because they could pot learn Herr Gelbel's “Hope of Spring,” the letter reads as follows: We suppose you did not think of such things when you wrote the poem. The Herr Lehrer says it is a very beautiful poem, but there are so many very beautiful poems and we are obliged to team them. Therefore we beg and entreat you, esteemed Herr Geibel, make no more beautiful poems. And to make it worse we have to learn the biography of every poet, what year he was born in, and what year he died In. We write to you because you are the only poet still living, and we wish you a very long W ’’ t T : ' i; " *“• ’ ‘ riCiSwu. nt* Senator Mark Hanna wean aa i watch charm a gold nugget which 1$ worth Ohio.