Wyoming, Pennsylvania is a borough that state, north of Wilkes-Barre. Wyoming state was actually named after this green and lovely valley though the guy who proposed the name eventually Saw Wyoming and wasn’t sure he got it right. The way I stumbled on this silliness was seeing this picture through the National Gallery of Art.

Delightful Wyoming, 1846. Artist, Edward Webb. English. (NGA, public domain)

The picture is extremely silly when thought of as taking place in the western United States, and only slightly better if thought of as colonial Pennsylvania. Here’s another bit of silliness.

Close He Had Come … 1846. Edward Webb. English. (NGA, public domain) The NGA notes on the picture included these lines.

/ Close he had come, and worshipped for a space / Those downcast features

I tried the words in google which persisted in suggesting that this was a Biblical quote. I didn’t think so. Eventually I went back to the NGA page and found this…

Compositions from Campbell’s Gertrude of Wyoming by C. E. Hicks. So English Thomas Campbell wrote a poem, a bunch of English artists did engravings for it, and Hicks collected the drawings. And the poem itself can be found easily once the title and author are used. But I am Not going to read the poem. And if anyone wants more pictures from this absolutely amazing work of art they can be found here. https://www.nga.gov/artists/49841-thomas-campbell

The poem takes place during the American Revolution during the Battle of Wyoming, which I never heard of before and which I am not investigating. I thought the first picture was funny and wrong. I thought the second picture was unbelievably annoying, and the cover page looks like a monkey in a veil.

This is what happens when Daylight Savings Time upsets my writing routine… just sayin’