Newspaper Poetry

Author: desperaudio

  • Gentlemen of the Road

    From the New York Tribune, May 25, 1913.
    (An Oxford don declares that walking is the form of exercise most often associated with high intelligence.)

    If I might leave my dull abode
     And all the strife and cares of town,
 And, light of heart, essay the road
     That leads by wood and open down,
 Then, as I spread those pinions wide
     That bear me through the realms of song,
 My soul would surely soar and glide
     The while my body jogged along.
 
 The lofty mind can ne’er abide
     In hooting car or roaring train;
 Only the rhythmic swinging stride
     Can vivify the sluggish brain.
 Come forth, O muse! and let us fare
     By vale and hill through scented ways
 To fill our lungs with scented air
     And witch the world with wondrous lays!
 
 And as I speed on winged feet
     Thrumming the while my gentle lyre,
 A glorious band I there shall meet
     In unconventional attire,
 Unrazored men with shaggy hair
     Whose faces show a healthy tan;
 Not tramps, indeed, as some declare
     But dons of Oxford to a man!

  • Still With Us

    From the Evening Star, May 24, 1913.
 By Philander Johnson.
 

     Oh, the dear old funny story
     Still appearing in its glory—
 What a train of memories it will invite!
     It will bring fond recollections
     Of the humorous reflections
 That the lecturers would stand up and recite.
     Each comedian rehearsed it
     After-dinner speakers nursed it
 We would hear it set to music light and gay.
     Even leaders of the nation
     As a means of illustration
 In their speeches kept it going on its way.
 
     Ivy climbs upon the steeple
     And the faces of the people
 Are wrinkling and their hair is turning gray;
     And the landmarks of each city
     Slowly crumble—more’s the pity—
 Till improvements come and sweep them all away.
     But that good old comic whimsy
     Though it seemed so wan and flimsy
 Still provides a glint of fiction or of truth.
     It’s a wondrous demonstration
     Of the one thing in creation
 That rejoices in an everlasting youth.

  • Song of the Wind

    From The Birmingham Age-Herald, May 23, 1913.
 By Robert Loveman.
 

 The wind has a mind of his own
     He’s a lover and rover free
 He mutters among the clouds
     He flutters above the sea;
 He ravages regions rare
     Where savages leap in glee
 He strips the forests bare
     In autumnal ecstasy.
 
 The wind is a child of earth
     Of ocean, air and sky,
 He joys at a young world’s birth
     He moans when the old ones die;
 He can woo a nodding rose to rest
     Or trample an empire down,
 He’s sceptered king of everything
     And the high stars are his crown.

  • Back to the Hotel

    From The Washington Times, May 22, 1913.
 By Helen Rowland.
 

 I know a little bachelor, with lots and lots of pelf
 And all the pennies that he gets he spends upon himself;
 But oh, how he can moralize! And oh, how he does pine
 For the “sweet old-fashioned woman,” and extol the “clinging vine!”
 And when, each night, he meets “the boys,” where golden beakers foam
 He cries in tones dramatic, “Woman’s place is in the home!”
 
 I know a lot of lovely maids, oh quite a score or more
 And each would make a charming wife for this same bachelor.
 But the “horrid things” insist on trotting downtown every day
 And slaving in an office—just to keep the wolf away.
 They should be darning someone’s socks or knitting baby-shoes.
 Their place is “in the home,” of course—somebody’s home—but whose?
 
 I know a girl of scarce sixteen, who rouses me to scorn
 She never stays at home at all, but trudges off each morn
 And pounds a little type-machine—oh, “just to pass the time”—
 And help her mother pay the rent. Such folly is sublime!
 Some one should really tell her to her pretty little face
 That girls were made for “ornaments.” The home is woman’s place!
 
 I live, myself, within a big luxurious hotel;
 And, when I want my dusting done, I simply ring a bell.
 I never do a single thing, but scribble all day long.
 I know, alas, this “idle” life is very, very wrong.
 I should be doing fancy work, or polishing my nails.
 But how I’d pay my bills that way—Well, there my fancy fails!
 
 What are the women coming to—to go at such a pace!
 The “sweet old-fashioned girl” sat ‘round and just massaged her face,
 Worked cushion-tops, and curled her hair, and gossiped by the hour;
 But lo, the modern woman goes at sixty-five horse-power!
 Ah, well, I trust that some of them will read this little “pome,”
 And realize, at last, that “Woman’s place is in the home!”
 
 Then Katy will not come back each day to put away my clothes,
 And who will write my quips for me—well, Heaven only knows!
 The typist and the laundry-maid, the waitress and the clerk
 Will stay at home, like ladies then, and do “a woman’s work.”
 And all the men will gather where the golden beakers foam—
 And wonder who on earth will do the work outside the home?

  • Crossing the Bar

    From The Birmingham Age-Herald, May 21, 1913.
 By Tennyson.
 

 Sunset and evening star
     And one clear call for me,
 And may there be no moaning of the bar
     When I put out to sea.
 
 But such a tide, as moving seems asleep,
     Too full for sound and foam,
 When that which drew from out the boundless deep
     Turns again home.
 
 Twilight and evening bell,
     And after that the dark,
 And may there be no sadness or farewell
     When I embark.
 
 For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
     The flood may bear me far
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face
     When I have crossed the bar.

  • The Tramp

    From the Evening Star, May 20, 1913.
    By Walt Mason.

    He’s idle, unsteady, and everyone’s ready to throw him a dornick or give him a biff; he’s always in tatters, but little it matters; he’s evermore happy, so what is the diff? He carries no sorrow, no care for tomorrow, his roof is the heaven, his couch is the soil; no sighing or weeping breaks in on his sleeping, no bell in the morning shall call him to toil. As free as the breezes he goes where he pleases, no rude overseer to boss him around; his joys do not whither, he goes yon and hither, till dead in a haystack or ditch he is found. The joys of such freedom—no sane man can need ‘em! Far better to toil for the kids and the wife, till muscles are aching and collarbone breaking, than selfishly follow the vagabond life. One laborer toiling is worth the whole boiling of idlers and tramps of whatever degree; and though we all know it we don’t find a poet embalming the fact as embalmed it should be. The poets will chortle about the blithe mortal who wanders the highways and sleeps in the hay, but who sings the toiler, the sweet spangled moiler, who raises ten kids on a dollar a day?

  • At Last

    From The Topeka State Journal, May 19, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 In eighteen hundred and twenty when Jim Purdy was nineteen,
 He wrote a comic story for a well known magazine.
 The story was accepted by the editor and when
 Jim Purdy got the news he was the happiest of men.
 He thought of course his story would within a month appear,
 But strange to say it didn’t get in print at all that year.
 Ten years he waited, then he wrote quite anxiously to learn
 The reason, and they told him that his yarn must wait its turn.
 
 He called upon the editor along in sixty-nine,
 And was informed his story was still waiting in the line.
 He asked for information as to when it might appear.
 They told him that it might perhaps, come out most any year.
 Jim Purdy waited patiently and lost his teeth and hair
 And bought each issue hoping he would find his story there.
 He talked about it all day long and dreamed of it at night;
 His great-grandchildren’s children could not understand him quite.
 
 One day the mail man brought a check. Old Jim pricked up his ears.
 ’Twas what he had been waiting for nigh on to ninety years.
 That week was sure a lucky one. The magazine came too;
 He trembled with excitement as he looked its pages through.
 His one hundred and seven years all seemed to leave him when
 He let a warwhoop out which seemed to make him young again.
 “I’ll write some more,” he cackled, as he quite forgot the past.
 “I’ve lived to see the thing in print. They’ve published it at last.”

  • San Francisco

    From The Birmingham Age-Herald, May 18, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 A pall hung over the broad blue bay;
 In smoking ruins the city lay—
 The splendid city so bravely planned—
 And Horror hastened from land to land
 And Sorrow’s sign was on every door
 For the far-famed city that was no more.
 
 And tearful men to their brethren said:
 “Its glory is gone and its greatness dead;
 Its marble halls and its stately homes
 Its towering walls and its lofty domes
 Its well-won pride and its careless glee
 Forever and ever have ceased to be!”
 
 But another city has risen there;
 They have made it great, they have made it fair;
 Its wharves have called to the wide world’s fleets
 And traffic roars through its crowded streets;
 Still glorified by the old romance
 It grieves no more o’er its sad mischance.
 
 They have left no trace on the flame-swept hills
 Of the twisted beams and the blackened sills,
 And over the haunts where vice was bred
 The glittering roofs of trade are spread;
 With matchless courage and splendid zeal
 They have made a marvel of stone and steel.
 
 They have planned with hope, they have wrought with pride
 And the spirit lives that men thought had died
 And they who were stricken so sorely dwell
 In a fairer city than that which fell
 And all that was lost in that day of despair
 They have bravely reclaimed and glorified there.
 
 The high hills gleam that were desolate
 And riches stream through the Golden Gate;
 A splendid city superbly planned
 Sends forth her greeting to every land,
 And fleets are sailing from every shore
 To the far-famed city that grieves no more.

  • My Pa

    From the Rock Island Argus, May 17, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 My pa is not a millionaire,
     He’s never been elected yet
 To any office anywhere,
     There’s lots of things that we can’t get;
 Ma often wishes we could buy
     The costly things the neighbors do;
 The price of livin’ is so high
     We have to skimp and worry through.
 
 I guess my pa was never meant
     To be a leader in the strife;
 Ma says he’ll not be president
     Nor get ahead much in this life.
 But he can make a whistle, though
     Just from a piece of willow tree;
 I wish that you could see the bow
     And arrow that he fixed for me.
 
 My pa gets paid so much a week
     Because he doesn’t own a store;
 Ma says if he was not so meek
     And mild he might be drawin’ more.
 We have no car nor runabout
     And nearly always have to save;
 Ma’s heart is often full of doubt,
     But pa keeps hopin’ and is brave.
 
 Sometimes I help him in the yard
     When he comes home on Saturdays;
 I’m sorry he must work so hard
     And wish that he could get a raise;
 Most all the time ma needs a lot
     Of things we can’t afford, and which
 The neighbors nearly all have got
     Because they managed to get rich.
 
 My pa sometimes takes me away
     Out in the country for fresh air;
 We build dams in the streams and play
     That both of us are boys, out there;
 Ma says that pa, long, long ago
     Just got to be a mere machine;
 I wouldn’t want to trade him, though
     For any pa I’ve ever seen.

  • Would It Not Be Well?

    From the Rock Island Argus, May 16, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 We speak in accents kind and fair
     Concerning those who have departed;
 We praise the ones who travel where
     The shoreless seas are all uncharted.
 Oh, it is well that we should raise
     Our voices in a grand, sweet chorus
 And passing o’er their foibles, praise
     The worth of them that go before us.
 
 But would it not be better still
     If men might sometimes gladly hear us
 Give forth expressions of goodwill
     And kindness while they lingered near us?
 ’Tis well to praise the dead, to be
     Respectful to them and forgiving;
 But would it not be good if we
     More often spoke well of the living?