Ad Astra Per Aspera.

KANSAS COLLECTION BOOKS

SOME OF THE RHYMES OF IRONQUILL.

A motto appears
On the seal of a State —
     Of a State that was born
     While the terror was brewing;
A motto defying
The edicts of fate;
     A motto of daring,
     A legend of doing.

A perilous past
And a cavernous gloom
     Had enshrouded the State
     In its humble beginning;
But courage of soul,
In repelling the doom,
     Of failure made hope,
     And of losing made winning.

Through scars to the stars,
Through the pall of the past,
     Through the gloom to the gleam
     Rose the State from the peril;
Then gleam became gloom,
And the laurels at last
     Were scattered in ashes
     Repugnant and sterile.

But Kansas shall shine
In the stories and songs
     That are told and are sung
     Of undaunted reliance.
Tile gloom yet will gleam,
And the evils and wrongs
     Will shrivel and crisp
     In the blaze of defiance.

The future shall bury
The now — as the woe
     On the field of a battle
     By verdure is hidden;
And hope will return
Like the harvests that grow
     Where cannon have plowed
     And the cavalry ridden.