AUTHOR OF THE 'CURFEW’

Evening Star, Issue 18375, 8 September 1923, Page 7

AUTHOR OF THE ' CURFEW ’

England's sun was slowly setting O'er the hilltops far away. Filling ail the land with beauty At the close of ones sad day; And its last rays kissed the forehead Of a man and maiden fair—.

Those familiar lines, parodied around the world, were written by Rose Hartwick Thorne while living in Litchfield, Mich., United Stetes of America, when she was sixteen years of ago. Oddly enough, though the scene is laid in England, the author has never been there. The poem

was a favorite of the lata Queen Victoria. That tlio author of the most celebrated poem of modern times, 1 Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,’ is still alive will come as a pleasant surprise to Die younger generation and also to thousands of persons who many yesterdays ago recite! the classic, with appropriate gestures, in. little icd sflioolliouscs the country over (says the 'Ntew York American’). Mrs Rose Hartwick Thorpo is halo and hearty and mentally alert, and a living refutation of her confessed ago of seventy-one. She row resides in Ban Diego, Cal. For many rears Mrs Thorpo was u bedridden invalid, but continued to write. Learning of her almost impoverished condition, Fleming H. Revell, the Chicago publisher, gave her literary employment in Chicago. Later she went, west, her husband’s health having failed. Despite its enormous popularity. ' Our lew ’ has not profited its author materially to any considerable, extent, fi or principal source of income is flic lent from ono-ludf of <i. duplex house, an attractive but unassuming house in a quiet residential section of Pan Diego. In talking of her famous poem, .Mrs Thorpe told how the thrilling st.anzas were scratched out, iii a frenzy of inspiration on her school slate one evening while the young girl was supposed to be doing her arithmetic.