A CONVICT POET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10059, 2 June 1910, Page 4

A CONVICT POET.

"John Carter," an English poet, who has been imprisoned at St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A., was released recently on his twenty-fourth birthday, five years before thy expiration of his ten-year sentence for the theft of £5 at a railway station when he was starving. "The prison officials," he said to an interviewer, "do not know my real name. lam 'John Carter' on the records." The sentence on the prisoner was commuted as the result of the efforts of the editors of the Century Magazine and other influential publications to which he contributed a series of re« 1 markable poems. His "Ballade of Misery and Iron," "Luxe Tenebris," and "Cor Sordini" showed an exceptional talent. Here, for instance, is a portion of the "Ballade of Misery and Iron"— I Haggard faces and trembling knees, j Eyes that shine witn a weaking's | hate, Lips that mutter their blasphemies, Murderous hearts that darniy I wait — I These were they who were men of j late, ! Fit to hold a plough or a sword. • If a prayer this wall will penetrate — i -Have pity on these my comrades, Lord! Mr Kobert Johnson, , the editor of the Century Magazine, said in an interview: "I took steps to obtain his pardon in the interests of literature, and because I feel that here is a manjvell worth saving. I should t .be proud if I could write as well as he." '