Category: Grand Forks Daily Herald

From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, August 6, 1915.

When I am dead, forget me dear,
    For I shall never know,
Though o’er my cold and lifeless hands
    Your burning tears should flow.
I’ll cancel with my living voice
    The debt you’ll owe the dead—
Give me the love you’d show me then,
    But give it now instead.

And bring no wreaths to deck my grave,
    For I shall never care,
Though all the flowers I love the most
    Should grow and wither there.
I’ll sell my chance of all the flowers
    You’ll lavish when I’m dead,
For one small batch of violets now—
    So give me that instead.

What saints we are when we are dead,
    But what’s the use for me
Of praise that’s written on a tomb
    For other eyes to see?
One simple little word of praise
    By lips we worship said,
Is worth a hundred epitaphs—
    Dear, say it now instead.

And faults that now are hard to bear
    Oblivion then shall win.
Our sins are soon forgiven us
    When we no more can sin.
But any bitter thought of me—
    Keep it till I am dead;
I shall not know; I shall not care;
    Say it then, instead.

From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, August 2, 1915.

A little boy and girl at school,
    Learning the self-same things;
Laughing and playing in the sun,
    Dear little wanderlings.
And he says to her, earnest-wise,
    And shyly droops his head,
“I love you most of all the world,”
    “And I love you,” she said.

A man and woman, calm, sedate,
    Learning the self-same things
From life’s great book, grown keen and wise
    From world-wide wanderings.
And he to her says, earnest-wise,
    And proudly lifts his head,
“I love you better than my life,”
    “And I love you,” she said.

A man and woman, old and old,
    Down life’s last slope they tread;
All bent and shrunken is her form,
    And silvery white his head.
And soft he says, “My dear, my dear,
    We’ve many years been wed,
But still I love you more and more.”
    “I love you too,” she said.

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.