From the Newark Evening Star, April 5, 1915. By William H. Maxwell.
Though my face is black, though I’m despised;
Though scorn for me doth leap from eyes,
Though hindered in life from doing my part,
Still I am human, with a human’s heart.
Rebuffed and reviled, I’m hated and abused;
The inalienable rights I am refused.
I am lover of peace, I strive to serve
While man refuses me that I deserve.
Earth’s sinners have strayed from Christ’s great plan,
And my hurt heart rebels, for I am a man.
From the Newark Evening Star, March 30, 1915. By W. D. Wegeforth.
He’s a little dog, with a stubby tail, and a moth-eaten coat of tan,
And his legs are short, of the wabbly sort; I doubt if they ever ran;
And he howls at night, while in broad daylight he sleeps like a bloomin’ log,
And he likes the feed of the gutter breed; he’s a most irregular dog.
I call him Bum, and in total sum he’s all that his name implies,
For he’s just a tramp with a highway stamp that culture cannot disguise;
And his friends, I’ve found, in the streets abound, be they urchins or dogs or men;
Yet he sticks to me with a fiendish glee, it is truly beyond my ken.
I talk to him when I’m lonesome like and I’m sure that he understands
When he looks at me so attentively and gently licks my hands;
Then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, but I never say aught thereat,
For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that!
So my good old pal, my irregular dog, my flea-bitten, stub-tailed friend,
Has become a part of my very heart, to be cherished till life-time’s end;
And on Judgement Day, if I take the way that leads where the righteous meet,
If my dog is barred by the heavenly guard—we’ll both of us brave the heat.
From the Newark Evening Star, March 6, 1915. By Bret Harte.
O joy of creation
To be!
O rapture to fly
And be free!
Be the battle lost or won,
Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love—the one
Born for me!
I shall know him where he stands
All alone
With the power in his hands
Not o’erthrown;
I shall know him by his face
By his godlike front and grace;
I shall hold him for a space
All my own!
It is he—O my love!
So bold!
It is I—all thy love
Foretold!
It is I! O love! What bliss!
Dost thou answer to my kiss?
O sweetheart! What is this
Lieth there so cold?
From the Newark Evening Star, February 26, 1915. By J. McKenna.
In the bright scenes of nature no greater delights
Than the bright summer mornings and clear, cloudless nights,
When we think of the beauty of land and of sea
Then our hearts fill with gladness and happy are we.
No picture, how skillful, will ever compare
To the bright scenes of nature so charming and fair,
The hills and the valleys, the clear running stream,
All blending together in beauty serene.
Let us gaze on the sun, on the sweet summer days
When it shines in all splendor with bright golden rays.
Once more let us turn to the sky in the West,
Bright day is declining, all nature at rest.
Let us list to the nightingale sing in the trees
And inhale the sweet roses in June’s gentle breeze
When we sail o’er the ocean, the moon sparkling bright,
Reflects on the water its clear, silvery light.
What joy and what pleasure when evening comes on
To list to the strains of sweet music and song,
To meet the dear friends that we all love so well
In our dear native homestead, where happiness dwells.
The bright scenes of nature and friends that we love
Is a reflex of Heaven, the land up above.
Soon springtime and summer once more will be here
To bring joy and gladness, fond hopes and good cheer.
From the Newark Evening Star, February 24, 1915. By Charles Kingsley.
When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among;
God grant you find one face there
You loved when all was young.
From the Newark Evening Star, February 19, 1915. By H. M.
“This is the sorrowfullest thing to know,”
The Persian said, “the coming of the woe,
And have no power to stay
The inevitable day.”
But he who had the power to bless, and chose
Iron and blood, and now foresees the close—
I reckon such a king
Earth’s sorrowfullest thing.
He living plumbs the dark abyss of hell,
Who shudders for the land he loves so well,
And knows, beyond recall,
Himself the cause of all.
From the Newark Evening Star, February 18, 1915. By Nancy Byrd Turner.
When we travel back in summer to the old house by the sea
Where long ago my mother lived, a little girl like me,
I have the strangest notion that she still is waiting there,
A small child in a pinafore, with a ribbon in her hair.
I hear her in the garden when I go to pick a rose;
She follows me along the path on dancing tipsy-toes;
I hear her in the hayloft when the hay is slippery sweet—
A rustle now, a scurry now, a sound of scampering feet;
Yet though I sit as still as still, she never comes to me,
The funny little laughing girl my mother used to be.
Sometimes I nearly catch her as she dodges here and there,
Her white dress fluttering round a tree or flashing up a stair;
Sometimes I almost put my hand upon her apron strings—
Then just before my fingers close, she’s gone again like wings.
A sudden laugh, a scrap of song, a football on the lawn,
And yet, no matter how I run, forever up and gone!
A fairy or a firefly could hardly flit so fast.
When we come home in summer, I’ve given up at last.
Then I lay my cheek on mother’s. If there’s only one for me,
I’d rather have her, anyway, than the girl she used to be!
From the Newark Evening Star, February 8, 1915.
I watched a sail until it dropped from sight
Over a rounding sea. A gleam of white—
A last far-flashed farewell, and like a thought
Slipt out of mind, it vanished and was not.
Yet to the helmsman standing at the wheel
Broad seas still stretched beneath the gliding keel.
Disaster? Change? He felt no slightest sign,
Nor dreamed he of that far horizon line.
So may it be, perchance, when down the tide
Our dear ones vanish, peacefully they glide
On level seas, nor mark the unknown bound.
We call it death—to them ’tis life beyond.
From the Newark Evening Star, January 16, 1915. By Ninette M. Lowater.
Once I thanked God for many a glittering thing
Which now I know was worthless and which passed
With things forgotten and behind me cast,
As I moved onward, borne by time’s swift wing,
But never thought I then that work could be
God’s gift, but rather, punishment it seemed;
And often in my lonely hours I dreamed
Of days when from its bond I should be free.
But now I know that work is man’s best friend,
Heaven’s highest blessing to a world like this;
And now I ask no longer ease and bliss,
But only this: “Give me until the end
Strength for the needed toil as each day passes by.
When I can work no longer let me die.
From the Newark Evening Star, December 21, 1914.
Where we used to live we had
A fireplace, big and wide,
An’ all that Santy had to do
Was hold his breath an’ slide,
An’ squeeze hisself until he fit
The hole, an’ then jest drop—
An’ he knowed where the stockin’s was,
‘Cause that was where he’d stop.
Where we used to live it was
No trick for him to climb
Up to the chimbly on the roof
An’ find us, Christmas-time;
But now I’m worryin’ for fear
He won’t know where he’s at,
Or mebbe can’t get in at all!
We’re livin’ in a flat.
We’re livin’ in a flat, an’ say,
You mus’ be mos’ polite,
Or else the janitor he’ll go
An’ lock you out at night!
There ain’t no chimbly to our house
Where Santy Claus can slide—
There ain’t no fireplace—just a pipe
About two inches wide.
They heat our flat with steam—that’s why
I’m afraid he can’t get in
With all his toys, an’ drums an’ things,
Unless he’s awful thin;
An’ how’s he gon’ to wiggle out
When he gets in? Gee whiz!
There’s such an awful little hole
There where the sizzle is!