The Author of the Poem "The Rain on the Roof."
The name of Coates Kinney, in the August number of Harper's Magazine, and the tinge of melancholy and pensive sentiment In the poem to which it is attached, bring to many old readers the pleasant knowledge that the author of "The Rain on the Roof" is still the same in mind that he was some forty years ago.
As a student in the Waynesville (O.) academy, he then acquired some fame among his fellow students as a writer of verses. Like most young schooltime poets, his effusions were sentimental rather than epical, and many a wife and
mother of today either remembers or has treasured up and laid away manuscript poems full of sentiment which were addressed to them by the rhymster, Coates Kinney. He caught an inspiration one night while trying to woo sleep in the old college dormitory, and there put on paper that beautiful bit of verse, "The Rain on the Roof." This poem made Coates Kinney famous. It began traveling and is on the journey yet. Who does not remember it:
When the humid shadows hover
Over all the starry spheres,
And the melancholy darkness
Gently weeps in rainy tears,
What a bliss to press the pillow
Of a cottage chamber bed,
And lie listening to the patter
Of the soft rain overhead!
The author has written very little poetry and no great amount of prose, yet several of his productions will live. He was born near Penn Yan, Yates county, N. Y., Nov. 24, 1826, was taken to Ohio quite young and got his college education at Antioch college, Yellow Springs. He studied law with the famous Tom Corwin and practiced a little, then turned his attention to journalism and finally gained wealth and the title of colonel by four years in the army as a paymaster. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention of 1868 and a member of the Ohio senate in 1882-3.
He lives in an elegant residence in Xenia, O. and lives well, having
acquired one moderate fortune and married a lady with another –
the daughter of a banker named. Allen. He is described
as keen and witty in conversation and quite agreeable, save when his talk
takes on a sarcastic tone; in fact, his opponents in discussion insist
that he puts altogether more acid in his talk than is desirable. He has
one married and one single daughter, and has always been domestic in his
habits, not at all ambitious and not inclined to hard work.