To students of Oregon literature, the story of Minnie Myrtle and Joaquin Miller is a familiar one. The two young fledgling writers were both contributors to the Oregon Democrat of Albany in the early 1860s. Miller, enticed by one of Minnie Miller’s poems, wrote to her, and a romantic correspondence ensued. After a year long correspondence, he rode by horseback from Eugene City to her home near Cape Blanco on the southern Oregon coast, and after a five day courtship they were married. They lived as husband and wife for almost seven years before they were separated. Their divorce was finalized in April 1870. Joaquin Miller sailed to Europe and published his collection Songs of the Sierras in 1871, to international renown. Several volumes of poetry followed, and today many of his writings are still widely accessible via the internet. Meanwhile, Minnie Myrtle struggled financially after the divorce, and her efforts to provide for her children took precedence over her writing. The majority of her poems, never collected for publication, have been lost.
The few extant poems of Minnie Myrtle Miller, for the most part, are personal in nature, and help shed light on the relationship between herself and her husband, then known by his given name, Cincinnatus Hiner Miller.
One newly discovered poem is significant for another reason: it offers evidence that Joaquin Miller may have, in fact, plagiarized from his wife, as critics in Oregon alleged at the height of his fame. This poem was published in the Morning Oregonian on February 16, 1865, and reads as follows:
My Love
My love is strong, and pure, and true,
….Deem not it fickle, weak or vain,
It scorns itself; it lives for you,
….And when its fetters bring thee pain
….It does not die, but breaks the chain.
It would not check thy upward flight,
….It whispers “Go, and win thy fame,
Go, love; my heart with pure delight
….Will see the brightness of thy name
….And ever still be thine the same.
“The ship will seem a royal ship
….That bears thee from the quiet vale,
The winds will o’er the blue waves slip
….And gaily fill thy spreading sail,
….But my strong heart—it cannot fail.
“Content to walk a lowlier walk,
….I still will think of thee away—
The shining, listless earth will mock
….My lonesome heart day after day;
….The brooks will talk of thy delay.
“And amorous trees will wreathe their boughs,
….And scented flowers their wreaths entwine,
And whispering winds will breathe their vows,
….Reminding me of thine and mine
….The love-thrills of the old lang syne.
“God help thee to be good and true;
….And when the trump of fame shall tell
That thou art with the favored few
….That on the dizzy summit dwell
….Deem not but I will know it well.
“’Twill come to this still home some day
….‘The goal is won and fame is thine,’
And in a land far, far away
….The laurel with thy deeds entwine
….And I will whisper ‘He is mine.’”
A few lines from this prescient poem resurfaced five years later, in slightly modified form, in Joaquin Miller’s poem “Myrrh.” It has been claimed that “Myrrh” was written after Miller’s divorce from Minnie Myrtle, and first published in Eugene, Oregon on June 11, 1870 in the Oregon State Journal, as Miller was sailing for San Francisco en route to Europe. In reality, his poem had been written at least three months prior to the divorce, and was first published anonymously in the State Rights Democrat at Albany, Oregon. Before sailing for Europe, Miller revised his poem, added a few stanzas, and sent it to the Oregon State Journal for publication, this time signing it “C. H. Miller,” and dedicating it “To M. M. M.” It was further revised and expanded for the first American printing of Songs of the Sierras. Although “Myrrh” attracted little attention upon its first publication, it would later become one of Miller’s best-known poems. The following is Miller’s original poem, as published in the State Rights Democrat on January 28, 1870:
Myrrh
So here our paths of life at last
Divide—diverge like delta’d Nile,
Which after desert dangers passed
Of many and many a thousand mile,
As constant as a column stone,
Seeks out the sea divorced—alone.
What recks it now whose was the shame?
But call it mine, for better used
Am I to wrong and cold disdain—
Can better bear to be accused
Of all that bears the shape of shame
Than have you bear one touch of blame.
I know yours is the lighter heart
And yours the hope of grander need;
Yet did I falter in my part?—
But there is weakness in defeat,
And I had felt its iron stride
While your young feet were yet untried.
My face is set for power and place—
My soul is toned to sullenness—
My heart holds not one sign or trace
Of love, or trust, or tenderness;
But you—your years of happiness—
God knows I would not make them less.
But should you sometime read a sign—
A name among the princely few—
While you are with your friends and mine,
Then careless say to one or two,
“He once was mine—his smiles—his tears,
Were mine—were mine for years and years.”
And yet ’twere but a bootless strife;
I ran too swiftly up the hill
Of my uncheerful path of life,
And wearied soon; God guiding still,
He made life’s hill-top low, so low
I crossed its summit long ago.
Thus sooner than you would suppose
Some weary feet will find repose.
And you will come some summer eve,
When wheels the white moon on her track,
And hear the plaintive night bird grieve
And heed the crickets clad in black,
Alone—not far—a little spell—
And say, “well, yes, he loved me well.”
And say, “well, yes, I mind me now,
None were so gently kind as he,
And yet this love was tame somehow,
It was so truly true to me.
I wished his patient love had less
Of worship and of tenderness.”
“I wish it still, for this alone,
There comes a keen reproach, or pain,
Or feeling I dislike to own—
A yearning for his voice again,
For they who did so much profess
I learn, too late, loved me the less.”
//////*……… ……*……… ……*…… ………*
God keep you beautiful and true;
God keep you pure, O very pure;
God help you to endure and do
The all he may demand of you—
Keep time-frosts from your raven hair
And your glad heart without a care.
The relevant stanzas from each poem are juxtaposed below:
from “My Love”:
“God help thee to be good and true; ……………
….And when the trump of fame shall tell…….
That thou art with the favored few………………
….That on the dizzy summit dwell……………….
….Deem not but I will know it well……………..
“’Twill come to this still home some day……………
….‘The goal is won and fame is thine,’…………
And in a land far, far away…………………………..
….The laurel with thy deeds entwine………….
….And I will whisper ‘He is mine.’”…………….
from “Myrrh”:
But should you sometime read a sign—
A name among the princely few—
While you are with your friends and mine,
Then careless say to one or two,
“He once was mine—his smiles—his tears,
Were mine—were mine for years and years.”
……….*…………….*…………….*….,,,…….*
God keep you beautiful and true;
God keep you pure, O very pure;
God help you to endure and do
The all he may demand of you—
Few of Minnie Myrtle’s early poems survive, so it is uncertain if this poetic borrowing was an isolated incident. If Miller intentionally borrowed her words, he altered them enough that they appeared almost original. Perhaps this was meant merely as a personal message to his ex-wife; one he knew she would recognize. That Miller meant for Minnie to see “Myrrh” is suggested not only by his signature “C. H. Miller,” but also his dedication of the poem “To M. M. M.” Few at the time, outside family and friends, would have recognized the names behind the initials.
Minnie Myrtle, residing at Portland, Oregon when Miller’s revised “Myrrh” appeared in the Oregon State Journal, did see his poem, and her poetic reply, “Sacrifice Impetro,” published in the Daily Oregon Herald on June 16, 1870, includes this particularly salient passage:
….And he, through books and bays,
Delveth for pretty words
….To weave in his languid lays,
Of women, and streams, and birds.
….What was my troth to him?
….A stepping-stone, at best;
My face was proud and my smiles were sweet,
….And his gold could do the rest.
Decked with my love, for a time;
….But the day and the hour came
When he pushed the face you loved in the dust,
….And stepped to his niche of fame.
This bit of newspaper verse, like Minnie Myrtle’s other poems, was soon forgotten after publication, but was rescued from obscurity one year later, after news of Miller’s success in London reached Oregon. Harrison Kincaid, editor of the Oregon State Journal, was in Washington, D. C. serving as clerk in the United States Senate, and in late June or early July 1871 began to read in the eastern papers about a “new California poet” creating a sensation in London. Upon further investigation, he discovered this poet was actually his former schoolmate and rival newspaper editor from Oregon, Cincinnatus Hiner Miller. Kincaid immediately composed a letter on the subject of Miller, identifying him as “an Oregonian,” and sent it to the editor of the Washington Sunday Morning Chronicle for publication. Of “Myrrh” he wrote:
[Miller’s] last production before leaving the shores of the Pacific was a parting farewell to his wife, entitled “Myrr,” [sic] and addressed to “M. M. M.” —Minnie Myrtle Miller. It was published over his signature on the 11th of June, a few days after his departure (he carrying away an advance proof-sheet), in the Oregon State Journal, which, although Republican, was the paper he selected as the medium of most of his publications, as his father, brothers, and nearly all his warmest personal friends were of that school of politics. To this production his wife published a reply in verse, soon after his departure, in which she criticised him in severe terms. (see “Joaquin Miller, the New California Poet,” Buffalo Daily Courier, July 14, 1871)
Kincaid wrote about Miller again in his weekly “Letter from Washington” to the Oregon State Journal. This letter, written on July 5, 1871, began with coverage of the the ratification and formal proclamation of the Treaty of Washington, which had taken place a day earlier, before Kincaid turned his attention to Miller. Similar in content to the letter he had written to the Sunday Morning Chronicle, this new letter dispensed with much of the biographical material, as “the readers of the Journal will readily recognize C. H. Miller, a resident of Lane county from boyhood.” He had this to say concerning “Myrrh”:
Before leaving Eugene City for Europe, early in June of last year, [Miller] handed me a manuscript poem entitled “Myrr,” [sic] and addressed to “M. M. M.” his wife, from whom he had separated. This was his last production before leaving the shores of the Pacific to try his fortune in a foreign land. It was published, over his signature, in the Journal of June 11th, 1870, and was considered by the author the finest thing he had ever written up to that time. The lady to whom it was addressed afterwards replied in verse through some other paper, I believe it was the Daily Herald. (“Letter from Washington,” Oregon State Journal, July 22, 1871, 2)
Kincaids letters concerning Miller were copied extensively in newspapers from coast to coast, and helped create interest in both “Myrrh” and “Sacrifice Impetro.” The two poems were widely reprinted over the next few months, especially in Oregon.
The aforementioned lines from “Sacrifice Impetro” take on new meaning when it is remembered they were written one year prior to the publication of Songs of the Sierras, and before Joaquin Miller had made a name for himself as a poet. The editor of the State Rights Democrat interpreted these lines from Minnie’s poem as an admission by her that Joaquin had pilfered from her writings. The following scathing indictment of Miller appeared in the August 4, 1871 issue:
C. H. Miller, ex-editor of the Eugene Register and ex-County Judge of Grant county, has published a book of poems and become a man of fame in London. The fact makes us think no more of Miller, but much less of the Londoners.
During the time that he was connected with the Register, he published one or more serial stories under his own name and called them original. They were, however, stolen bodily from some of the flash publications of that day. The plagiarism was palpable and audacious. For particulars, we refer the curious to the files of the paper named, of, if we mistake not, the year 1862, in the Librarian’s office at Salem. After his marriage, which took place in the year named, and after he began to write poetry, this habit of plagiarism was not abandoned, if his wife’s testimony is worth anything and if we do not misinterpret the following quotation taken from her “Sacrifice Impetro,” a reply to Miller’s “Farewell” on leaving Oregon:
…………“And he through books and bays
……………..Delveth for pretty words
…………To weave in his languid lays
…………….Of women and streams and birds.”For this and many other better reasons we don’t hesitate to pronounce the belief that this so-called poet is, what is termed in the vernacular of this coast, a first-class bilk, and that besides the other injuries that he has inflicted upon his unhappy wife, he has filched from her literary jewels and published them as his own.
Up to the date of his marriage Miller had published no poetry, if indeed he had written any. But up to that time and for a long time prior thereto, the people of this State had been charmed by the verses of Mrs. Miller, then “Minnie Myrtle.” Minnie Myrtle’s poetry left off where Miller’s begun. Those who take the trouble to compare Miller’s Joaquin, et al., with these verses of Mrs. Miller, published more than ten years ago, will readily detect her poetic genius upon the best pages of the book. In some of them they will recognize the woman, as for instance in the Sierra Nevadas, which makes them look
…………“As though Diana’s maid last night,
…………Had in liquid soft moonlight,
…………Washed out her mistress’ garments bright,
…………And on yon bent and swaying line
…………Hung all her linen out to dry.”It is much more likely that the simile of a line hung with linen and which employs the idea of washing garments in liquid moonlight, should occur to a woman of strong poetic imagination, the routine of whose life was the wash-tub and the kitchen, than to a languid and dyspeptic man. The quotation has the credit of being the best in the book.
…………The lines—
……………………“What was my troth to him?
……………………..A stepping-stone at best;”
in Mrs. Miller’s reply to Miller’s “Farewell,” seems to be evidence against him upon the charge of appropriating his wife’s literary productions. The italics are used by us.
None of these claims made by the editor of the State Rights Democrat can be verified, however. Instead of giving specific examples of Miller’s plagiarism, the editor simply tells his readers to compare Miller’s verse with that of his ex-wife, “published more than ten years ago” (circa 1861). Unfortunately, these poems are now lost. The editor likewise fails to name the “flash publications” from which Miller supposedly plagiarized, instead referring the curious researcher to the Librarian’s office at Salem to view the files of the Democratic Register (Miller’s newspaper) for the year 1862. The editor also seems unaware Miller had been a contributor to the Oregon Democrat in the 1860s, often signing his pieces “Giles Gaston.” These writings in the Oregon Democrat may actually be the ones to which the editor was referring when he alleged Miller had “stolen bodily from some of the flash publications of that day.”“Annie Vernon the Authoress,” for example, was published in the Oregon Democrat on May 28, 1861, credited to “Giles Gaston,” one of Miller’s pseudonyms. Miller reprinted this complete story in the Eugene City Review (not the Register) on November 1, 1862, retitled “The Authoress,” and signed by a different name, “DeWeiver.”
Many in Oregon shared the Democrat’s belief that Joaquin was plagiarizing his wife’s poems and publishing them as his own. In an 1872 letter to a Louisville newspaper, an anonymous correspondent from San Francisco called Joaquin Miller “a heartless, selfish, literary fraud,” and claimed that “the Songs of the Sierras, and all of the most popular productions of the rising Western poet, are actually the productions of Mrs. Joaquin Miller…but she refuses to claim the productions of her own fertile and imaginative brain, preferring to live ̒unwept, unhonored, and unsung,’ to bringing dishonor upon the head of him whom she loves with a true womanly devotion.” (February 2, 1872)
Thomas H. Brents was working as county clerk of Grant County when Joaquin Miller was 
practicing law in Canyon City, and was well-acquainted with both Joaquin and Minnie. “His wife’s name was Minnie Myrtle and I remember she used to write some excellent poetry,” he told Fred Lockley of the Oregon journal. “Heine used to come around once in a while or, rather, twice in a while and that was pretty often, to read poems to us, claiming that he was the author of them. I remember one that struck me particularly was a poem called “Gettysburg.” We talked it over among ourselves and decided that Miller was something of a fraud and was palming off his wife’s poetry as his own. However, as he continued to turn out poetry after his wife left him we came to the conclusion that the work was probably his own.” (Lockley)
Even George Sterling, who became a close friend of Miller in the 1890’s, believed Miller had published some of his wife’s writings as his own. In an article on Miller written for the American Mercury, Sterling stated:
Like Swinburne’s also, [Miller’s] poems lend themselves to a general aesthetic impact rather than to quotation of particular lines or passages. He was not a maker of great lines, and his perhaps most magical ones were not his own creation at all, but written and given to him by his first wife, Minnie Myrtle:
…………And ever and ever His boundless blue,
…………And ever and ever His green, green sod,
…………And ever and ever between the two
…………Walk the wonderful winds of God.I doubt if Joaquin ever admitted his obligation in the matter. I had the information for a woman who had been one of Minnie Myrtle’s closest friends. (Sterling)
Charges of plagiarism continued to follow Miller throughout his life. Colonel W. H. Moss, press agent for the Calhoun Opera Company, claimed to have known the Miller family when they lived in Eugene, Oregon and said that most of Miller’s poetry was actually written by Oregon poet Samuel Leonidas Simpson (1845-1899). “After Joaquin Miller, having made more or less of a success at signing poetry, which I think seriously was written by some one else, he fell into a large piece of luck,” Moss told the Oakland Tribune. “In Corvallis was a young attorney named Sam L. Simpson, a graduate of Willamette University…Simpson could write poetry, drunk or sober, the only trouble being that he wasn’t picturesque enough to sell it. Miller, who know a good thing when he sees it, got hold of young Simpson and—well, you know the rest. A delighted reading public has ever since enjoyed reading the poetry and other things signed by Joaquin Miller, most of which was written by a disciple of Bacchus and rejoicing in the plebeian and unromantic name of ̒Sam L. Simpson.’” (June 23, 1893) Moss, however, gives no evidence to back up his assertions, nor does he provide a plausible explanation of how or why Simpson would have allowed Miller to take his poems and publish them as his own.
Newspaper editor Henry Clinton Parkhurst, who had written an article about Miller, “The Border Life of Joaquin Miller,” for the August 1872 Lakeside Monthly, later alleged that some of his own poems had been plagiarized by Miller. Parkhurst claimed that in New York City in the winter of 1892 he showed Miller a manuscript of poems he was preparing for publication, and that several of these poems were afterwards appropriated by Miller. In his retelling of the incident, Parkhurst did not mince words: “They were stolen out of my manuscript.” (see “Book Pirates” in Parkhurst Collection) One of these poems, “The Voyage of Columbus,” according to Parkhurst, later resurfaced as Miller’s famous poem “Columbus.” A comparison of these two poems shows that they do share the same subject and the famous line “sail on.” Otherwise, however, they appear to have little in common (See Miller’s poem “Columbus” and “Evolution of a Poem” in Parkhurst’s Songs of a Man Who Failed, pages 282-283). Parkhurst did not name the other poems he alleged were cribbed from his manuscript by Miller, so it is impossible at this time to make any further comparisons.
So was Joaquin Miller really a plagiarist? There may not be a definitive answer to this question. Miller’s friend and biographer Harr Wagner admits that while Miller “was an autoplagiarist and often lifted lines from one poem and placed them in another poem in a different setting,” he denies that Miller ever plagiarized from other poets. Some biographers have noted Miller’s debt to Byron in his early poems, and his later imitations of Browning and Swinburne, but unfortunately very little scholarly attention has been focused on Miller’s works, particularly those written before he became famous. For now, the only concrete evidence of Joaquin Miller’s plagiarism comes in the form of an obscure poem published by his wife in 1865.
Sources:
“Such is Fame,” State Rights Democrat, August 4, 1871, 2; “Personal,” Pittsburgh Commercial, February 2, 1872, 2; Fred Lockley, “In the Days of the Pony Express” Oregon Daily Journal, November 10, 1912, [n.p] (57); “Hot on Joaquin,” Oakland Daily Evening Tribune, June 23, 1893, 8; George Sterling, “Joaquin Miller,” American Mercury, February 1926, 229; Harr Wagner, Joaquin Miller and his Other Self (San Francisco: Harr Wagner Publishing Company, 1929), 230; Henry Clinton Parkhurst, Songs of a Man Who Failed: The Poetical Works of Henry Clinton Parkhurst (Lincoln, Neb: The Woodward Press, 1921), 282-83; Henry Clinton Parkhurst Collection, 1862-1921, Ms 16, Special Collections, State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City.
One of the most colorful figures in nineteenth-century American literature, Joaquin Miller was known for his eccentric personality and flamboyant western dress. During his lifetime he was often classed among America’s greatest poets, but today he is remembered more for his contributions to the myths of the American west than for his poetry.
Theresa Dyer, better known by her pen name Minnie Myrtle Miller, was the second wife of eccentric poet Joaquin Miller, and a talented poet in her own right.
Forgotten Poets 
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