From The Birmingham Age Herald, March 27, 1915. By Charles Miller.
Life is a game of whist; from unseen sources
The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt.
Blind our efforts to control the forces
That, though unseen, are no less strongly felt.
I do not like the way the cards are shuffled,
But still I like the game and want to play.
Thus through the long, long night will I, unruffled,
Play what I get until the break of day.
From the Rock Island Argus, March 26, 1915.
Only a dad with a tired face
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game,
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.
Only a dad, of a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more,
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and scorns of life
With never a whimper of pain or hate
For the sake of those who at home await.
Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd,
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way;
Silent, whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.
Only a dad, but he gives his all
To smooth the way for children small,
Doing, with courage stern and grim,
The deeds that his father did for him;
This is the line that for him I pen.
Only a dad, but the best of men.
From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, March 25, 1915. By Bliss Carman.
Now the joys of the road are chiefly these,
A crimson touch on the hardwood trees;
A vagrant morning wide and blue,
In early fall, when the wind walks, too;
A shadowy highway cool and brown,
Alluring up and enticing down;
From ripply water to dappled swamp,
From purple glory to scarlet pomp;
The outward eye, the quiet will,
And the striding heart from hill to hill.
An idle moon, a bubbling spring,
The sea in the pine-tops murmuring;
A scrap of gossip at the ferry,
A comrade neither glum nor merry;
Asking nothing, revealing naught,
But minting the words from a fund of thought.
These are the joys of the open road,
For him who travels without a load.
From the Rock Island Argus, March 24, 1915.
Old Zeke Perkins sold his hogs the other day,
And the gosh-durned fool threw his money right away.
Rode into town sitting right on a board,
And he came ridin’ home in a darned little Ford.
When he came to the house and got to the gate,
He shut down the throttle and he put on the brake,
He grabbed for the reins, got the throttle instead,
And the gol darned Ford kept a chugging ahead.
Old Zeke Perkins bought an automobile,
Old Zeke Perkins’ whiskers were red.
Old Zeke Perkins lost the combination
And the darn little Ford kept chugging right ahead.
Zeke jerked on the levers and he turned off the gas,
He kicked at the pedals and he broke out the glass,
He cut all the wires, and he pulled off the top,
But the gosh darned Ford it just wouldn’t stop.
He pulled out his knife and he smiled so serene,
Cut a hole in the tank, drained out the gasoline.
He pulled out his gun, shot the tires full of lead,
But the gol darned Ford kept chugging right ahead.
Went right through the fence and up through the lane;
Mirandy saw him coming and she like to went insane,
She ran out ahead, then she stopped to see,
And the Ford struck her squarely where the bustle ought to be.
She reached out her arm as she went in the air,
Just as Zeke went by she grabbed him by the hair;
She bounced on the seat, landed down in the bed,
And the gol darned Ford kept chugging right ahead.
He steered for the shed, but just missed the hole,
Struck an old pig and you ought to see it roll,
Out through the yard then they landed in a heap,
In a big muddy pool ‘bout six feet deep.
Zeke grabbed Mirandy and waded for the shore;
He was glad that it stopped and wouldn’t go no more.
He pricked up his ears then he looked back and said,
“Why, the gol darned Ford is chugging right ahead.”
From The Sun, March 23, 1915. By Arthur Guiterman.
A BALLAD OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY
If I were a young middy in love with a girl, I would marry her if it broke up the whole navy. I would let nothing like that stand between me and the girl I loved.
—Secretary Josephus Daniels
It was just eight bells or about half past,
And our tea was in the process of solution,
When they piped all hands to the maintopmast
For to solemnize a naval execution.
An’ we heard the horns of the Horse Marines
An’ their boots drumming hollow on the planking
As they marched up a youth in his early teens
With manacles an’ fetter locks a-clanking.
Oh, they dragged him up, and I felt real bad
When I saw ’twas little Timothy the ensign,
An’ I knew that they meant for to hang the lad,
A proceeding what there wasn’t any sense in.
And our captain stern to the prisoner said,
“You will shortly be suspended from a gibbet,
For you’ve gone an’ went and a gal you’ve wed,
Which the articles especially prohibit!”
Oh, his gal runs up, so pale an’ sweet
(And she was a ravin’, tearin’ beauty!)
An’ she swooned for grief at the captain’s feet,
But he only muttered, “Seamen, do your duty!”
Oh, I wept big tears till my blouse was soaked,
For they tied a halter round the middy’s wishbone,
An’ the poor boy gulped, an’ the poor boy choked
As he might have been a-swallerin’ a fishbone.
Now we heard a shout an’ a whistle toot,
And orders come to anchor an’ to reef us;
An’ a man come aboard in a broadcloth suit
Which I seen was the eminent Josephus.
Oh, he stepped right up to the boy (poor chap!)
And sez he, “You’re a credit to the nation!
An’ you shan’t be hanged by no gold lace cap
For the breakin’ of a stupid regulation!
“For if I loved a gal an’ the gal loved me
I’d marry her in Afriky or Siam
If it wrecked every ship in the hull navee—
For that’s the sort of prairie chicken I am!
“An’ you shall cruise with your bride, you shall
Afar on the ocean wavy,
For I’ll make you a Lord High Admiral
If there’s any such position in the navy!”
From The Birmingham Age Herald, March 22, 1915. By James E. Coyle.
Let the winds of the world make answer!
North, south, and east and west;
“Wherever there’s wealth to covet,
Or land that can be possessed;
Wherever are savage races
To cozen, coerce and scare,
Ye shall find the vaunted ensign:
For the English flag is there!
Aye, it waves o’er the blazing hovels
Whence African victims fly,
To be shot by explosive bullets,
Or to wretchedly starve and die;
And where the beachcomber harries
The isles of the Southern sea,
At the peak of his hellish vessels,
’Tis the English flag flies free.
The Maori full oft have cursed it
With his bitterest dying breath;
And the Arab has hissed his hatred
As he spits at its folds in death.
The hapless fellah has feared it
On Tel-el-Kebir’s parched plain,
And the Zulu’s blood has stained it
With a deep indelible stain.
It has floated o’er scenes of pillage
And has flaunted o’er deeds of shame;
It has waved o’er the fell marauder
As he ravished with sword and flame;
It has looked upon ruthless slaughter,
And massacres dire and grim;
It has heard the shrieks of the victims
Drown even the Jingo hymn.
Where is the flag of England?
Seek the lands where the natives rot;
Where decay and assured extinction
Must soon be the peoples’ lot.
Go, search for the once glad islands,
Where diseases and death are rife,
And the greed of a callous commerce
Now fattens on human life!
Where is the flag of England?
Go, sail where rich galleons come
With shoddy and “loaded” cottons,
And beer, and Bibles and rum!
Go too, where brute force has triumphed,
And hypocrisy makes its lair;
And your question will find its answer,
For the flag of England is there.
From The Sun, March 21, 1915. By Rudyard Kipling.
The buses run to Battersea,
The buses run to Bow
The buses run to Westbourne Grove
And Notting Hill also;
But I am sick of London town
From Shepherd’s Bush to Bow.
I see the smut upon my cuff
And feel him on my nose;
I cannot leave my window wide
When gentle zephyr blows,
Because he brings disgusting things
And drops ’em on my clothes.
The sky, a greasy soup-toureen,
Shuts down atop my brow.
Yes, I have sighed for London town
And I have got it now:
And half of it is fog and filth,
And half is fog and row.
And when I take my nightly prowl
’Tis passing good to meet
The pious Briton lugging home
His wife and daughter sweet,
Through four packed miles of seething vice
Thrust out upon the street.
Earth holds no horror like to this
In any land displayed,
From Suez unto Sandy Hook,
From Calais to Port Said;
And ’twas to hide their heathendom
The beastly fog was made.
I cannot tell when dawn is near,
Or when the day is done,
Because I always see the gas
And never see the sun,
And now, methinks, I do not care
A cuss for either one.
But stay, there was an orange, or
An aged egg its yolk;
It might have been a Pears’ balloon
Or Barnum’s latest joke;
I took it for the sun and wept
To watch it through the smoke.
It’s oh to see the morn ablaze
Above the mango-tope,
When homeward through the dewy cane
The little jackals lope,
And half Bengal heaves into view,
New washed—with sunlight soap.
It’s oh for one deep whisky peg
When Christmas winds are blowing,
When all the men you ever knew,
And all you’ve ceased from knowing,
Are “entered for the Tournament,
And everything that’s going.”
But I consort with long-haired things
In velvet collar-rolls,
Who talk about the Aims of Art,
And “theories” and “goals,”
And moo and coo with women-folk
About their blessed souls.
But that they call “psychology”
Is lack of liver pill,
And all that blights their tender souls
Is eating till they’re ill,
And their chief way of winning goals
Consists of sitting still.
It’s oh to meet an Army man,
Set up and trimmed and taut,
Who does not spout hashed libraries
Or think the next man’s thought,
And walks as though he owned himself,
And hogs his bristles short.
Hear now, a voice across the seas
To kin beyond my ken,
If ye have ever filled an hour
With stories from my pen,
For pity’s sake send some one here
To bring me news of men!
The buses run to Islington,
To Highgate and Soho,
To Hammersmith and Kew therewith
And Camberwell also,
But I can only murmur “Bus!”
From Shepherd’s Bush to Bow.
From the Rock Island Argus, March 20, 1915. By W. D. Nesbit.
Bother to man, and to beast, and bird,
Bother to grass and trees—
This is my saying; this is my word;
I have been all of these.
Out of me, back of me, year by year,
Journey the maids and men;
Treading me, tossing me there and here—
Then to my arms again.
Look at me, laugh at me! Yet I hold
Red of the rose’s heart,
Red of the laughing lips, that, bold
Smile with a maiden’s art.
Helpless and void of a sign of life
Here on the king’s highway—
Still, I have babbled of love and strife;
I was a king one day!
Gray in the twilight, and white at dawn—
Walk on me—me, a thing!
What have I been in the days agone?
Beggar, and priest, and king!
I have been a flower, and brute, and bird,
I have been maids and men.
Spurn me, and—brother, you have my word—
We shall change place again!
From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, March 19, 1915. By L. M. Montgomery.
She gave not out of her golden store,
For no golden store had she,
And faithful love was her only wealth
For a gracious ministry.
But royal gifts to the world she gave
With every quiet day,
And many a heart was richer far
Because she had passed that way.
She gave of her truest sympathy
To those who were worn and sad;
She gave a song in a darksome place
That made the listener glad.
She gave a loving and tender word
To a tired, discouraged soul,
And lo, it rose in a newfound strength
To win the wished for goal.
She gave not out of her golden store,
For no golden store had she.
And never the voice of fame was heard
To herald her ministry.
But she gave the oil of joy for tears
And sunshine to banish gloom,
And beauty and sweetness beneath her steps
Sprang rainbow-like to bloom.
From The Topeka State Journal, March 18, 1915. By E. B. Widger.
There’s a sound that rings in my ears today
And echoes in vague refrain;
The ripple of water o’er smooth-washed clay
Where the wall-eyed pike and the black bass play,
That makes me yearn in a quiet way
For the old home haunts again.
Back to the old home haunts again,
Back where the clear lake lies,
Back through the wood where the blackbirds brood,
Back to my rod and flies.
I wish I could paddle my boat today
Through water-logged grass and reeds
Where the muskrat swims and the cattails sway
And the air is cool and the mist is gray
And the ripples dance in the same old way
Under the tangled weeds.
Back on the old oak log again
Back by the crystal brook,
Back to the bait and the silent wait,
Back to my line and hook.
I wish I could wade by the water’s edge
Where the falling leaves drift by,
Just to see in the shadow of the ledge
Where dark forms glide like a woodman’s wedge
Through drifted piles of dark marsh sedge,
And hear the bittern cry.
Back where the tadpoles shift and shirk,
Back where bullfrogs sob,
Back just to float in my leaky boat,
Back to my dripping bob.
Oh, it’s just like this on each rainy day;
Always the same old pain
That struggles and pulls in the same old way
To take me off for a little stay
By the water’s edge in the sticky clay,
To the fish in the falling rain.
Back to my long, black rubber boots,
Back to my old patched coat,
Back to my rod and breath of God,
Home, and my leaky boat.