Joaquin Miller was the penname of the hyperbolical American eccentric Cincinnatus Heine (or Hiner) Miller (September 8, 1837, or November 10, 1841 - February 17, 1913). Born in Indiana, he moved to Oregon and later to California where he had a variety of occupations, including mining-camp cook who came down with scurvy from eating what he cooked, lawyer and a judge, a newspaper writer and a Pony Express rider. After spending several years in New York and Europe, he settled in California, where he grew fruit and published his poems. Called (mainly by himself) the "Poet of the Sierras" and the "Byron of the Rockies", he was more of a celebrity in England than in his native United States.
Miller is best remembered today for one of his poems:
- “In men whom men condemn as ill
- I find so much of goodness still.
- In men whom men pronounce divine
- I find so much of sin and blot
- I do not dare to draw a line
- Between the two, where God has not.”
His poems include "Songs of the
Sierras," "Songs of the Sun-Lands," and "The Ship in the Desert."
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