Famous Single Poems
and the other is fourteen lines of doggerel entitled “A Persian Fable,” telling the story of a mythical bird with one wing which could fly only when its mate came along and hooked on to the wingless side!
Flowers by the Wayside is an octavo volume of 194 pages, gorgeously bound in crimson morocco, and was published by The Co-operative Publishing Co.—which probably means that the contributors paid for the privilege of having their poems included, and were perhaps to divide the profits, if any. At least the volume has all the earmarks of a book of that sort, and the verses which adorn its pages are almost without exception incredibly bad. “No Unbelief” is easily the best of the lot, and this was, perhaps, its first appearance between the covers of a book.
Six poems by Mrs. Case in addition to those which appeared in the Free Press are listed in Granger’s Index to Poetry and Recitations, so that her complete works as they now survive consist of sixteen poems. “No Unbelief” is the only one which ever became widely known, and that of course was due not to its poetic merit but to its sentimental appeal. It has traveled hand in hand with McCreery’s “There Is No Death.” The two poems are spiritual twins.
It should be noted in passing that Mrs. Case never signed her first name Elizabeth, but always Lizzie.
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