Newspaper Poetry

Author: desperaudio

  • The Outs

    From the Evening Star, April 26, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    It is difficult to be a politician,
        And labor for your country night and day.
    There are times a man would rather go a-fishin’
        And let the precious moments drift away.
    But a statesman has to stay in active service,
        And seek to elevate the human race;
    With reminders of this fact to make him nervous—
        There are hundreds who are waiting for his place.

    No matter if he’s eloquent or witty;
        No matter if his industry’s immense;
    No matter if he can reform a city
        Or check the course of folly and pretense;
    No matter if he’s wise and brave and moral,
        The world’s ingratitude invites a sob;
    He is sure to find temptations to a quarrel
        With the hundreds who are waiting for his job.

  • The Forest

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, April 25, 1915. By David.

    God’s Temple is the forest, silent, true;
    It’s done the arching heavens, gray or blue;
    Each rock and tree an altar in the air;
    Each leaf a sermon and each flower a prayer.
    Here feathered choristers their praises sing,
    And sun and rain their benedictions bring;
    And here the human soul is often stirred
    By unseen forces of an unseen world.
    It comes to all of us, the low and high,
    Still none can tell from whence it comes, or why.
    A little newsboy once, to aught unknown
    Excepting city streets of brick and stone,
    Was taken from the city man had laid,
    And carried to the country God had made.
    And in his simple, childlike way expressed
    What our minds, more mature, had only guessed.
    He stood with hat in hand, and gazed around,
    From the cloud-flecked sky to the mossy ground;
    The look of cunning faded from his face,
    And left a look of wonder in its place.
    “Say, boys, it’s a queer feelin’ I have got,
    I just want to stand in this one spot,
    And look and think and think and look again,”
    He whispered low, as though afraid, and then
    The trees, the leaves, the grass, with reverent hand
    He touched, but still he did not understand.
    “It is not here,” he said, “It’s in the air;
    It seems to come to me from everywhere,
    And touch me here,” and with a sudden start,
    He laid his hand upon his beating heart.
    With swift glance in the branches overhead,
    “Say, it’s like a church,” was all he said.

  • Rest

    From The Bridgeport Evening Farmer, April 24, 1915. By Almont Barnes.

    Burn low, O light, and let the darkness in!
        Let silence be where fitful sounds have been;
    Let soul to body be no more a mate;
        Let each, too tired, be sweetly desolate.

    Yea, let the soul, e’en as a too loved bride,
        Turn gently from its sacred body’s side;
    Love slumber more than love; turn and be still;
        Now that they both, or not, have had their will.

    What matters it? They both are tired to death;
        They, married with the breathing of a breath,
    Would gather up the feet and be at rest,
        Content to be oblivious of the best—

    And happier so all discord to elude,
        All bitter pain, in that great solitude
    That reaches like a sea, cool, infinite,
        O’er folded hands and lips to memory sweet—

    A sea of grassy waves, foam fringed with flowers,
        The tenderest gift of any gift of ours;
    For lo, the last of all, with floral wile
        We woo the mutest thing, the grave, to smile.

    If one goes gladly, at the close of day,
        Puts all the playthings of his world away,
    Pulls down the curtain, lays his aching head
        And weary body on a downy bed—

    Divested of all care, but robbed in sleep,
        Not any one will make it cause to weep;
    Then after one sigh, if there be no breath,
        What rest is kindlier than the sleep of death?

    O soul, we each have wearied! Let us turn
        Both breast from breast. There is no more to learn.
    There may be dawn beyond the midnight’s pall;
        But now sweet rest is better—best of all.

  • Brave Love

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 23, 1915. By Mary Kyle Dallas.

    He’d nothing but his violin,
        I’d nothing but my song,
    But we were wed when skies were blue
        And summer days were long.
    And when we rested by the hedge
        The robins came and told
    How they had dared to woo and win
        When early spring was cold.
    We sometimes supped on dewberries
        Or slept among the hay,
    But oft the farmer’s wives at eve
        Came out to hear us play.
    The rare old tunes—the dear old tunes;
        We could not starve for long
    While my man had his violin
        And I my sweet love song.

    The world has aye gone well with us,
        Old man, since we were one;
    Our homeless wanderings down the lanes—
        It long ago was done;
    But those who wait for gold or gear,
        For houses and for kine,
    Till youth’s sweet spring grows brown and sere
        And love and beauty tine,
    Will never know the joy of hearts
        That met without a fear
    When you had but your violin
        And I a song, my dear.

  • Have I Failed?

    From the Newark Evening Star, April 22, 1915. By S. E. Kiser.

    I have worked and I have won
        Certain pleasing victories;
    If the things that I have done
        Be not heard of overseas,
    Or their merits be denied
        Or unnoticed by the crowd,
    Still, to me they have supplied
        Moments when my heart was proud.

    I have loved and I have heard
        Her who seemed angelic say
    Tenderly the golden word
        That swept all my doubts away;
    Though the world may never look
        For such worth as I have had,
    Or perceive my little nook,
        I have filled it and been glad.

    I have seen her child and mine
        Sleeping in her proud embrace;
    If my gifts be not divine,
        Nor my place a lofty place,
    I have worked and hoped and won
        All the love a man may claim.
    Have I failed if I have done
        Naught to bring me wealth or fame?

  • A Contrast

    From the Rock Island Argus, April 21, 1915. By Ted Robinson.

    The lips of her were scarlet, and she carried golden hair;
    And wondering eyes like April skies, and simple, violet air.
    Yes, she had cheeks like peaches and the innocent white brow
    Of children who can know no sorrow now—no sorrow—now!

    She had pathetic, faded eyes, and she wore silver hair—
    Her forehead showed the crowsfoot cross of many a carking care;
    She had the slender, blue-veined hands of one whose work was done—
    The dim, sweet smile of happiness, lost long ago—and won!

    And close they sat together in the softened twilight hour—
    The tender opening blossom and the scentless, drooping flower;
    Which of them shall we pity with a philosophic mind—
    The bitter life that’s coming, or the sweet life left behind?

  • Our Own

    From the Newark Evening Star, April 20, 1915. By Margaret E. Sangster.

    If I had known in the morning
    How wearily all the day
        The words unkind
        Would trouble my mind
    I said when you went away,
    I had been more careful, darling
    Nor given you needless pain;
        But we vex our own
        With look and tone
    We might never take back again.

    For though in the quiet evening
    You may give me the kiss of peace,
        Yet it may be
        That never for me
    The pain of the heart should cease.
    How many go forth in the morning
    That never come home at night;
        And hearts have broken
        For harsh words spoken
    That sorrow can ne’er set right.

    We have careful thoughts for the stranger,
    And smiles for the sometimes guest,
        But oft for our own
        The bitter tone
    Though we love our own the best.
    Ah, lips with the curve impatient,
    Ah, brow with that look of scorn
        ‘Twere a cruel fate
        Were the night too late
    To undo the work of the morn.

  • When the Little Feller Grins

    From the Rock Island Argus, April 19, 1915. By W. D. Nesbit.

    They ain’t much to a baby, till it gets to know yer face
    An’ pesters till you take it an’ hug it ‘round the place,
    An’ grapples at yer whiskers with pudgy-wudgy hands,
    An’ sez a lot o’ gurgles its mother understands.
    An’ the time a gran’dad’s gladness and tickledness begins
    Is when th’ little feller looks up at him an’ grins.

    His grin shows that he knows ye, and trusts ye as a friend—
    A baby isn’t growed up an’ never can pretend!—
    His eyes has honest twinkles an’ somehow you know they start
    From ‘way down in th’ goodness that’s beatin’ in his heart.
    It’s confidence he gives you without no outs and ins
    When he begins to dimple an’ looks at you an’ grins.

    They ain’t much to a baby, but in its grin you know
    You’re seein’ lots o’ sunshine you lost long, long ago;
    It makes you feel religious—a baby’s heart is clean
    An’ when it gives its favor it’s purpose isn’t mean—
    You think the Lord’s forgiven a hull lot o’ your sins
    When that fat little feller looks up at you an’ grins.

  • The Sixty-Year-Old Boys

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 18, 1915. By Strickland Gillilan.

    It once was the rule, in your lifetime and mine,
    That the fifty-year man was far gone in decline.
    That he wore bushy whiskers and stooped as he walked,
    And quavered a bit in his voice as he talked.
    But, oh, what a change has come over mankind!
    The fifty-year youngster of now isn’t blind
    Or halt or decrepit or whiskered—nay! nay!
    The sixty-year “kid” is the rule of today!

    There may be some snow at his temples, ’tis truth;
    But folks say, “Some people grow gray in their youth.”
    He’s carefully groomed, and he’s straight as a rod;
    He laughs like a child and he smiles like a god.
    He’s natty and nobby and brisk as a boy—
    To meet him, to be in his presence, is joy.
    Instead of December, he’s April or May—
    The sixty-year youngster is with us to stay.

  • The Chant of the Vultures

    From The Sun, April 17, 1915. By Edwin Markham.

    We are circling, glad of the battle; we joy in the smell of the smoke.
    Fight on in the hell of the trenches; we publish your names with a croak!
    Ye will lie in dim heaps when the sunset blows cold on the reddening sand;
    Yet fight, for the dead will have wages: a death-clutch of dust in the hand.
    Ye have given us banquet, O kings, and still do we clamor for more;
    Vast, vast is our hunger, as vast as the sea-hunger gnawing the shore.

    O kings, ye have catered to vultures—have chosen to feed us, forsooth,
    The joy of the world and her glory, the hope of the world and her youth.
    O kings, ye are diligent lackeys; we laurel your names with our praise,
    For ye are the staff of our comfort, for ye are the strength of our days.
    Then spur on the host in the trenches to give up the sky at a stroke;
    We tell all the winds of their glory—we publish their fame with a croak!