Carleton, Will
Will (1845-), an American poet. He was born at Hudson, Michigan, and educated at Hillsdale College. He has for some years resided in Brooklyn, New York. He has written several volumes of verse. The best known are Farm Ballads, Farm Legends, Farm Festivals, City Ballads, City Legends, and City Festivals. Mr. Carleton has been successful as a lecturer and reader of his own ballads. Among his most popular poems are Betsy and I are Out, Over the Hill to the Poor House, The First Settler's Story, The Chicago Fire, and The Christmas Baby. Carleton is a poet of the home. He presents the humorous and tragic incidents of farm and country life in the form of dramatic monologue. His characters are honest, brave, and kindly. Their homely speech seems a fitting vehicle for the expression of deep but simple feeling. In The New Church Organ the good sister tells how she dislikes the "new machine," and disapproves of "praising the Lord by note":
For five-an'-thirty year;
I've done what seemed my part to do,
And prayed my duty clear;
But Death will stop my voice, I know,
And some day I to church will go,
And never more come back;
And when the folks gets up to sing-
Whene'er that time shall be-
I do not want no patent thing
A-squealin' over me!"