William Dean Howells 
Stops of Various Quills (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

This 1895 collection of verse, gorgeously illustrated by Howard Pyle, contains among other poems ‘The Bewildered Guest, ‘ ‘Midway, ‘ ‘From Generation to Generation, ‘ ‘The Burden, ‘ ‘Reward and Punishment, ‘ and ‘Friends and Foes.’ After losing his daughter a few years before, Howells proved with this collection that he was not an irrepressible optimist.

About the author

William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American novelist and critic.  He edited the Atlantic Monthly from 1871-1881, where he championed literary realism and advanced the careers of such important American writers as Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Henry James.  His best known novel is The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885).