Kansas Women in Literature

ELLEN PALMER ALLERTON.

Ellen Palmer Allerton, the sweet and gentle poetess, beloved of Kansas, lived at Padonia, in Brown County, when she wrote her famous poem, "Wall of Corn."

She was past her prime when she came to Kansas from the Wisconsin home, the subject of many of her noble gems. As she grew older, she grew stronger in poetic strength.

Three volumes of poems have been published, "Walls of Corn and Other Poems," "Annabel and Other Poems," and "Poems of the Prairie." Her "Walls of Corn," written in 1884, famous from the first, as used as railroad immigration advertising, was translated in several languages and distributed all over Europe. This and her "Trail of Forty-nine" are her best, although the classic beauty of "Beautiful Things" is unsurpassed by any other American writer.

     "Beautiful twilight, at set of sun,
     Beautiful goal, with race well run,
     Beautiful rest, with work well done."

is a fitting close to the beautiful, useful life of the author.

Mrs. Allerton was born in Centerville. New York, in 1835 and began writing verse at the age of seventeen. Much as she has written, yet writing was only a pastime. She never let it interfere with her housework. Thoroughly practical, she did all her own work, just because she loved to do it. Her flowers of which she had many, in doors and out, resulted in many noble, inspiring lines. In 1862, she was

married to A. B. Allerton of Wisconsin, coming to Kansas in 1865. She was best appreciated for her social qualities and her interest in charity—that broader charity that praises the beauty and ignores the blemishes. Her last poem, "When Days Grow Dark" is a beautiful pen picture of her sweetness and resignation in her growing blindness and her love and trust in him who had been her companion down the years.

     "You take the book and pour into my ear
        In accent sweet, the words I cannot see;
     I listen charmed, forget my haunting fear,
        And think with you as with your eyes I see.
     In the world's thought, so your dear voice be left,
        I still have part, I am not all bereft.

     And if this darkness deepens, when for me
        The new moon bends no more her silver rim,
     When stars go out, and over land and sea
        Black midnight falls, where now is twilight dim,
     O, then may I be patient, sweet and mild,
        While your hands lead me like a little child!"

She died in 1893, at Padonia, and was buried in a bed of her favorite white flowers, donated by loving friends. In the little graveyard at Hamlin, one reads "Beautiful Things" on a modest stone at the head of her little bed.