In childhood he showed a taste for learning, and in early youth was sent to West Nottingham Academy, where he received his education.  While at the Academy he is said to have been always willing to write the compositions of his fellow students, and to help them with any literary work in which they were engaged.

Mr. Cooley studied law in the office of the late Col.  John C. Groome, and was admitted to the Elkton bar on the 4th of April, 1850.  He practiced his profession in Elkton for a short time, during a part of which he was counsel to the County Commissioners, but removed to Warsaw, Illinois, where he continued to practice his profession for six years, after which he came to Harford county, where he resided until the outbreaking of the war of the rebellion, when he joined the Union army and continued to serve his country until the close of the war.  In 1866, he married Miss Hattie Lord, of Manchester, New Hampshire, and settled in Darlington, Harford county, Maryland, where he was engaged in teaching a classical school until the time of his death.

Mr. Cooley was born within a few miles of the birthplace of William P. and E.E.  Ewing, and Emma Alice Brown and almost within sight of the mansion in which Mrs. Hall wrote the poems which are published in this book.

Mr. Cooley was a born poet, a voluminous and beautiful writer, and the author of several poems of considerable length and great merit.

Mr. Cooley’s widow and son, Marvin L. Cooley, still survive, and at present reside in Darlington.

A STORY WITH A MORAL.

One ev’ning, as some children play’d
Beneath an oak tree’s summer shade,
A stranger, travel-stained and gray,
Beside them halted on his way. 
As if a spell, upon them thrown,
Had changed their agile limbs to stone,
Each in the spot where it first view’d
Th’ approaching wand’rer mutely stood. 
Ere silence had oppressive grown
The old man’s voice thus found a tone;
“I too was once as blithe and gay—­
My days as lightly flew away
As if I counted all their hours
Upon a dial-plate of flowers;
And gentle slumber oft renew’d
The joyance of my waking mood,
As if my soul in slumber caught
The radiance of expiring thought;
As if perception’s farewell beam
Could tinge my bosom with a dream—­
That twilight of the mind which throws
Such mystic splendor o’er repose. 
Contrasted with a youth so bright
My manhood seems one dreary night,
A chilling, cheerless night, like those
Which over Arctic regions close. 
I married one, to my fond eyes
An angel draped in human guise. 
Alas! she had one failing;
  No secret could she keep
In spite of all my railing,
  And curses loud and deep. 
No matter what the danger
  Of gossiping might be,
She’d gossip with a stranger
  As quickly as with me. 
One can’t be always serious,