Newspaper Poetry

Author: desperaudio

  • Grandmother’s Dream

    From the Evening Star, May 6, 1915. By Sydney Dare.

    Mamma said, “Little one, go and see
    If grandmother’s ready to come to tea.”
    I knew I mustn’t disturb her, so
    I stepped very gently along, tip-toe,
    And stood a moment to take a peep,
    And there was grandmother, fast asleep.

    I knew it was time for her to wake
    And thought I’d give her a little shake,
    Or tap at her door, or softly call,
    But I hadn’t the heart for that at all.
    She looked so sweet, and so quiet there,
    Lying back in her high armchair,
    With her dear white hair and a little smile
    That means she’s loving you all the while.

    I didn’t make a speck of noise,
    I knew she was dreaming of little boys
    And girls, who lived with her long ago
    And then went to heaven (she told me so).

    I went close, but I didn’t speak
    One word, but I gave her on her cheek
    The softest bit of a little kiss,
    Just like a whisper, and then said this:
    “Grandmother, dear, it’s time for tea.”
    She opened her eyes and looked at me
    And said, “Why, pet, I have just now dreamed
    Of a little angel who came, and seemed
    To kiss me lovingly on my face.”
    She pointed right at the very place.

    I never told her ’twas only me,
    But took her hand and we went to tea.

  • War Risks

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, May 5, 1915. By C. Fox Smith.

    “Let’s go aft”… and out she slides,
    Pitching when she meets the tides…
    She for whom our cruisers keep
    Lordly vigil in the deep…
    Sink or swim, lads, war or no,
    Let the poor old hooker go.

    Soon, hull down, will England’s shore,
    Smudged and faint, be seen no more;
    Soon the following gulls return
    Where the friendly dock-lights burn…
    Soon the cold stars, climbing high,
    March across the empty sky…
    Empty seas beyond her bow,
    (Lord, she’s on her lonesome now.)

    When the white fog, stooping low,
    Folds in darkness friend and foe…
    When the fast great liners creep
    Veiled and silent through the deep…
    When the hostile searchlight’s eye
    Sweeps across the midnight sky,
    Lord of light and darkness, then,
    Stretch Thy wing o’er merchantmen!

    When the waters known of old
    Death in dreadful shape may hold…
    When the mine’s black treachery
    Secret walks the insulted sea…
    (Lest the people wait in vain
    For their cattle and their grain),
    Since thy name is mercy, then,
    Lord, be kind to merchantmen!

  • Metempsychosis

    From the New York Tribune, May 4, 1915.

    Oh, do you remember the day of our fate,
        In that mystical age of a dim, long ago—
    When you were a princess and I was a slave,
    You throned in a palace, I chained in a cave,
        In that land where the rivers of paradise flow?
    By chance you passed near me, I dared raise my eyes,
        And love shot an arrow that through my heart drave;
    My soul broke its fetters and flew to your side;
    It called, and you listened and to it replied—
        Though you were a princess and I was a slave!

    We loved—and they slew us! They called on the gods,
        And the gods made them answer, and cruelly smote:
    “Ye gain not Nirvana!”—and we died as they spoke,
    But our death was not death—we but slept, we awoke—
         And you were a cat, love, and I was a goat!
    And we fled from each other, we fled to find death;
        For death we went crying, but nought could avail.
    Accursed we wandered, shunning cities and men,
    And when I next saw you and knew you again—
        Then you were a bear, love, and I was a whale!

    The centuries dripped through the year-glass of time;
        We were birds, we were fish, we were snakes, we were apes.
    One penance completed, the next would begin;
    We had loved, and the gods said our loving was sin,
        And we roamed through the earth in a thousand brute shapes.
    But love, it was worth all the sorrow and shame,
        All the pain that we bore, all the tears that we gave;
    For now it is ended—there is nothing we owe;
    Our debts to the gods have been cancelled, and lo!—
        Again you’re my princess, again I’m your slave!

  • Moving Pictures

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, May 3, 1915. By David.

    On Farnam Street, where Sixteenth joins, one day
    I idly watched the masses on their way,
    And as one waking, slowly comprehends,
    I knew these for my life-long, well-tried friends,
    Who, from the world of fiction strayed away,
    Escaping from the printed page, that they
    Might taunt me with resemblances unique
    Of face and form. I did not dare to speak,
    And scarce believed so many years had flown,
    For Dickens, Scott and Hawthorne must have known
    These self-same folk. They were all here, and more:
    Mark Tapleys, yes, and Pickwicks by the score;
    Good Don Quixote, without lance or shield.
    Rough Robert Burns and gentle Eugene Field
    With all their characters. Then Tiny Tim
    And Jenny Wren came by with Sunny Jim;
    Then Scrooge and David Harum with a Priest;
    Then Mr. Opp and Beauty and the Beast;
    Perlmutter and Abe Potash, come to life;
    And then poor Mr. Caudle with his wife;
    And Jean Val Jean with Cossette by his side;
    Then Edwin dear, and Angeline, his bride;
    And Sary Gamp and Betsy Prigg in tears;
    And Marys, Marthas, Clara Vere de Veres;
    Shy Minnehaha, too, and Susan Clegg,
    And surely that was Amy, Joe and Meg;
    Gay Wallingford and Blackie Daw, his pard;
    And Eloise without her Abelard.
    Here were they all, our friends, the saints and crooks,
    To make the characters of future books.
    From every walk of life they came to meet
    On equalizing plane, the public street,
    Where each, engrossed in his own selfish lot,
    To jostling stranger gave no second thought,
    Though ‘twould bring smiles and tears if they had seen
    These self-same pictures on a movie screen.

  • The Non-Combatants

    From The Sun, May 2, 1915.

    Why should we mourn that shot and shell
        Are sweeping lives away
    When each man has his private hell
        And dies anew each day?

    Upon the bloody field where death
        His thundering summons calls,
    The men who face the cannon’s breath
        May win to glory’s halls.

    Mixed in that elemental strife
        Perhaps they may forget
    The heartaches that we bear through life,
        The sorrow, the regret.

    Sweeter by far the lot they choose
        Than ours who stay behind,
    Who find what we would gain we lose,
        Unbound what we would bind.

    We envy them the deaths they die,
        Our hearts must die each day,
    We greet with sad and hopeless eye
        Each morn’s returning ray.

    They fall, to live forever more
        In glory’s brightest page,
    We live in sorrow to deplore
        The bars around our cage.

    The gods on high, if gods there be
        To comfort or condemn,
    Shall, if they judge with equity,
        Lament for us, not them.

  • What is the News?

    From The Fool-Killer, May 1, 1915. By James Larkin Pearson.

    “What is the news in the paper today—
        The news from over the sea?”
    The reader he flicked his fat cigar,
        And a billowy puff puffed he.
    “Oh, nothing—it speaks of a little fight,
        But it reads like childish play;
    A trifle of fifty thousand dead—
        There’s nothing important today.

    “The city of Skippit was burned last night,
        And half of the people killed;
    The living have fled, and the bloody streets
        With charred black bones are filled.
    The British dreadnaught, Mindyerbiz
        Torpedoed in Dareyou Bay;
    The blood in Flanders is only knee deep—
        There’s nothing important today.

    “Not more than twenty-five million men
        Are facing the shot and shell,
    And a trifle of ten times that, perhaps,
        At home ‘mid terrors dwell.
    Oh my! It’s an awfully dull affair!
        Why don’t they fight some? Say!—
    Here—take the old paper—I’m done with it all—
        There’s nothing important today.”

  • The Way of the World

    From the Newark Evening Star, April 30, 1915. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

    Laugh, and the world laughs with you,
        Weep, and you weep alone.
    This odd old earth must borrow its mirth,
        It has trouble enough of its own.
    Sing, and the hills will answer.
        Sigh, and it is lost on the air.
    The echoes rebound to a joyful sound
        But they shrink from voicing care.

    Rejoice, and men will seek you,
        Grieve and they turn to go;
    They want full measure of your pleasure,
        But they do not want your woe.
    Be glad, and your friends are many,
        Be sad, and you lose them all.
    There are none to decline your nectar’d wine,
        But alone you must drink life’s gall.

    Feast and your halls are crowded,
        Fast, and the world goes by—
    Forget and forgive, it will help you to live,
        But no man can help you to die.
    There is room in the halls of pleasure
        For a long and lordly train,
    But one by one we must all march on
        Thro’ the narrow aisle of pain.

  • The Little Worn Shoes

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, April 29, 1915. By David.

    Poor, tired little shoes! Uncomplaining
        They give their life to fulfill
    The orders and calls and commandments
        Of feet that never are still.

    They tramp o’er the hills and the meadows,
        And mud is their chief delight;
    They were trim and shining this morning,
        Now they are a woeful sight.

    They are scuffed and muddy and dingy,
        Their tongues hang panting for breath;
    For the little feet that wear them
        Have run them almost to death.

    And while they are busy destroying,
        I’m busy finding a way
    To buy new shoes on the morrow,
        To replace the ones of today.

    For new shoes, prized as a treasure
        Today, tomorrow are old.
    But at sight of innocent faces,
        I have not the heart to scold.

    Though each year they’re a bit larger,
        A cost just a trifle more;
    And each year they wear a bit faster
        Than they did the year before;

    For the little feet in the future
        Will lose their desire for play,
    And soberly walk in the highways
        With no longing or wish to stray.

    So I turn to my work with new purpose,
        And new courage for the fight;
    And through blinding tears, as I view them,
        Those shoes are a beautiful sight.

    Then I gather them up with rapture,
        And thank the Lord with a will,
    For the rough little shoes, worn and shabby,
        And the feet that never are still.

  • Reply to When You and I Were Young, Maggie

    From the Newark Evening Star, April 28, 1915.

    The past we can never recall,
        It fled with our youth long ago;
    But its joys and its memories all
        Are ours while we linger below;
    The murmuring brook may be dry,
        And hushed be the voice of the mill,
    But the songs that they sang cannot die
        While pleasures of memory thrill.

    And daisies will deck the green vale
        And bird-notes hang over the hill,
    And other lips tell the sweet tale,
        When we shall be silent and still.

    The green above is gone, it is true,
        But broad blades of bright waving corn
    Are gemmed with bright diamonds of dew
        Where blithesome birds greeted the morn;
    The corn is as green as the grove,
        The birds sing as sweetly as then,
    And we live the past o’er in our love
        And feel all its pleasures again.

    In that city so silent and lone,
        Where loved ones so peacefully sleep,
    There lies a dear darling, our own,
        Whom angels have taken to keep.
    The roses that blossom and fall,
        And cover her sunny brown hair,
    Sweet fragrance will shed over all,
        When we shall be slumbering there.

    Say not we are feeble with age,
        For age cannot lessen our love.
    This earth-life is but for a span,
        Eternity waits us above.
    The trials of life we have borne,
        With trustfulness, patience and truth;
    The past let us never more mourn,
        There’s a realm of perennial youth.

  • My Every Wish

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, April 27, 1915. By Jay B. Iden.

    If I were told my every wish kind heaven’d grant to me,
    I’d take my childhood back again, but, dear Lord, make it free
    From all the prickly nettles that beset my childish way
    And left their cruel scars upon my heart from day to day.
    We hear folks talk of poverty, of how it trains the mind,
    And steels us ‘gainst adversity, and helps us to be kind;
    But you who’ve never felt its sting, on whom good fortune’s smiled,
    Oh, wist ye not the longings of a hungry-hearted child.

    If I were told my every wish kind heaven’d grant to me,
    I’d take my childhood back again, but not its poverty.
    I’d take the breath of daisy blooms, the warm, warm April rain,
    The dear wild roses clinging to the fence along the lane;
    I’d take the path I used to know at eve along the hill,
    I’d pause again beside the wood to hear the whippoorwill;
    I’d be again the wanton child, so wayward, wild and free,
    And hear again, at eventide, my mother calling me.

    If I were told every wish kind heaven would fulfill,
    I’d ask but for my childhood days, the old, old days—but still,
    If they should bring the old, old wants, the trials hard to bear,
    My father worn with toil and dread, my mother worn with care,
    If I should see the neighbor folk in gay apparel pass,
    I think I’d do as I did then, fall sobbing in the grass;
    The warm, warm grass that spread about the sheltering maple tree,
    Which seemed to throw its great arms out to hide our poverty.

    So, if perchance, my every wish kind heaven’d grant to me,
    I would not call my childhood back; nay, rather let it be.
    Not all the glad days on the hill where thick the daisies grew,
    Nor all the wild flowers blossoming amid the morning dew;
    Nor all the pleasant dreams I dreamed, o’ still midsummer nights,
    Nor all the games I used to play where hawthorne blooms were white;
    Nor all the songs my mother sang of Erin’s sparkling streams—
    Such wishes, ay, they could but rise from ashes of her dreams.