Newspaper Poetry

Category: Newspapers

  • Wish You Was Here

    From The Sun, August 3, 1913.

    Got a card from Steve this mornin’, doggone his trav’lin’ skin
    He’s up around Niag’ry Falls a-writin’ home agin.
    Seems like that boy’s one glory is to wander full an’ free
    An’ furder off he gits, I gosh, th’ more he writes to me.
    He sends these picture postal cards, with photos showin’ that
    The world is allus beautif’lest where you ain’t livin’ at.
    His messages reads all the same, in letters large an’ clear
    He writes from Maine er Kankakee an’ says—
        “Wish you was here!”

    Nobody ever seems to know just when he’ll go er where.
    We git his destination from the card that says he’s there.
    An’ he ain’t more than settled down to loaf a day er two
    Till he gits thinkin’ up the names of ever’one he knew.
    An’ then with ever’ doggone cent he possibly kin spare
    He buys the Unitary church, the Depot an’ the Square.
    He buys ‘bout ever’thing they is in Bath er Belvidere,
    Then mails the whole blame business home an’ says—
        “Wish you was here!”

    I guess he’s at Niag’ry now; he was last time he wrote,
    But that don’t prove conclusively he ain’t in Terry Hote.
    He may be down in Panama er snoopin’ round in Nome.
    Nobody knows just where he’s at—except he ain’t at home!
    I guess we’d never hear from him fer months er mebbe years
    If some kind soul had not devised these picture souvenirs.
    Yes, I expect if Steve would die he’d rise up from his bier
    To pen a card to all his friends an’ say—
        “Wish you was here!”

  • Counting the Years

    From the Evening Star, August 2, 1913. By Walt Mason.

    The years shouldn’t count when we’re stating our age, for some men are young when they’re gray, and others are old ere they’ve journeyed a stage in this world and its wonderful way. I know an old graybeard who ought to be dead if years laid a man by the heels; he cheerfully sings as he stands on his head, “A man’s just as old as he feels.” The years do not age us so badly, in truth; it’s worry that makes the blood cold; the man who is blessed with the spirit of youth is young when a hundred years old. The graybeard I wot of, he laughs and he yells and dances Virginia reels, and always and ever his roundelay swells, “A man’s just as old as he feels.” No man should admit that his days are near told, or talk of the past with a sob; no man should admit that he’s growing too old to eat summer corn from the cob. The graybeard I speak of, he’s slicker than grease, he cheers up the world with his spiels; he says (and his words suggest comfort and peace), “A man’s just as old as he feels.” I know a young man who is thirty or less, in years, but he’s old as the hills; he goes around looking for grief and distress, and talks by the day of his ills. The graybeard, God bless him, is younger than that! He ne’er at the wailing place kneels; he chortles, while kicking a hole through his hat, “A man’s just as old as he feels!”

  • The Self Important Man

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, August 1, 1913.

    A young man who wore flaming ties
        Was loudly heard to say
    He’d like to take a little rest,
        But could not get away.

    It seems he thought the busy firm
        For which he was a clerk
    Would only last the briefest time
        If he should stop from work.

    And yet, if ever he got fired
        Some morning by the boss,
    The people he says need him so
        Would scarcely feel his loss.

    The world is full of men like that
        Whose self-inflation’s such
    They think this world without their aid
        Would not amount to much.

  • The Prime Need

    From the Rock Island Argus, July 31, 1913. By Henry Howland.

    She tried this thing and then tried that
        To keep from growing frightful;
    She thought when she was like a slat
        That plumpness was delightful;
    But, having lost her slenderness,
        She starved herself and banted;
    Each added pound brought new distress,
        And dismally she panted.

    She tried to fight the wrinkles back
        By using many lotions;
    She sighed, “Alas!” and sobbed, “Alack!”
        And harbored sad emotions;
    Her eyes, once beautiful, no more
        Were filled with fine expression;
    She lost the smile that years before
        Had been her choice possession.

    She tried in many, many ways
        To keep from growing frightful;
    Of all things that she valued, praise
        Was always most delightful;
    She mourned the hardness of her lot,
        Her eyes were often tearful—
    And all because she’d just forgot
        The need of keeping cheerful.

  • A Woman’s Love

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, July 30, 1913. By John Hay.

    A sentinel angel sitting high in glory
    Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
    “Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story:

    “I loved—and, blind with passionate love, I fell;
    Love brought me down to death, and death to hell,
    For God is just, and death for sin is well.

    “I do not rage against his high decree,
    Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be;
    But for my love on earth who mourns for me.

    “Great Spirit! Let me see my love again,
    And comfort him one hour, and I were fain
    To pay a thousand years of fire and pain.”

    Then said the pitying angel, “Nay, repent
    That wild vow! Look, the dial finger’s bent
    Down to the last hour of thy punishment!”

    But still she wailed, “I pray thee, let me go!
    I cannot rise to peace and leave him so.
    Oh, let me soothe him in his bitter woe!”

    The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar,
    And upward, joyous, like a rising star,
    She rose and vanished in the ether far.

    But soon down the dying sunset sailing,
    And like a wounded bird her pinions trailing,
    She fluttered back, with broken hearted wailing.

    She sobbed, “I found him by the summer sea
    Reclined, his head upon a maiden’s knee—
    She curled his hair and kissed him. Woe is me!”

    She wept, “Now let my punishment begin.
    I have been fond and foolish. Let me in
    To expiate my sorrow and my sin.”

    The angel answered, “Nay, sad soul, go higher!
    To be deceived in your true heart’s desire
    Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire.”

  • Ambition

    From The Topeka State Journal, July 29, 1913. By Roy K. Moulton.

    Let others work and lose their health
    In piling up the sordid wealth,
        But that is not my wish.
    Let others burn the midnight oils,
    Devising ways of grabbing spoils;
        I’d rather sit and fish.

    Let others solve the problems great,
    Affecting the affairs of state;
        None of that on my dish.
    Let others hew the nation’s path
    And bear the thankless public’s wrath,
        I’d rather sit and fish.

    Let others lead the strenuous life
    That’s full of worry, toil and strife,
        But that’s not my ambish.
    Let others wear their lives away
    By living five years every day;
        I’d rather sit and fish.

  • Summer Fiction

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, July 28, 1913. By Arthur Chapman.

    Ere Jones went on his prized vacation
        He said, “I’ll need some books to read;
    ’Twill add unto my recreation
        If I can scan a fiction screed.”
    So to the phone soon Jones was turning,
        And to the book store sent a call;
    “For fiction,” quoth Jones, “I am yearning,
        So send the new books—send them all.”

    And so, next morn, ere Jones was leaving,
        Two moving vans stopped at his door;
    The driver asked, “Shall we be heaving
        These books upon the lawn or floor?
    There’s seven more loads on the way, sir—
        Three motorcycle loads beside;
    The fiction crop this year they say, sir,
        Is heavy—that can’t be denied.”

    And Jones rushed out and saw them carting
        Love tales and “crook” yarns by the ton;
    “Oh, what,” he cried with optics starting,
        “Is this mad thing that I have done?”
    And straightaway in a heap he tumbled—
        The ambulance took him away—
    But still the fiction order rumbled
        Up to the Jones front door all day.

  • We Kissed Again

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, July 27, 1913. By Tennyson.

    As thro’ the land at eve we went,
        And plucked the ripened ears,
    We fell out, my wife and I,
    We fell out, I know not why,
        And kissed again with tears.

    And blessings on the falling out
        That all the more endears,
    When we fall out with those we love,
        And kiss again with tears!

    For when we came where lies the child
        We lost in other years,
    There above the little grave,
    O there above the little grave,
        We kissed again with tears.

  • Tangled Lives

    From the Evening Star, July 26, 1913. By Philander Johnson.

    Oh, Bull’s-Eye Bill was a burglar bold
        Who never did what he was told.
    He smoked and chewed and swore and drank
        And his greatest pleasure was to rob a bank.

    Miss Susan Slosh was a suffragette,
        A militant of the ultra set.
    She’d burn a castle or she’d wreck a train
        Or heave brick-bats through a window pane.

    When Bull’s-Eye Bill and Susan wed
        ’Twas a very fine match, the neighbors said.
    But Bill got blue ‘cause his wife would roam.
        She’d rather go to prison than remain at home.

    The tears would course down his cheeks so pale
        As he begged her to please come out on bail.
    “A jail’s all right for a man,” says he,
        “But it ain’t no place for a woman to be.”

    So they disagreed an’ their ways they went.
        She gets locked up to her heart’s content.
    And Bill gets to cussin’ now and then
        ‘Bout women usurpin’ the sphere of men.

  • The Reward

    From the South Bend News Times, July 25, 1913. By Berton Braley.

    He passed Love up for money and got the cash he sought,
    For gold he gave up Friendship—which can’t be sold or bought,
    He bade good-bye to pleasure, he said farewell to fun,
    He only wanted cash in hand—and cash was what he won.

    He had no heart for laughter, no time to dream or dance,
    Adventure had no charms for him, he scoffed at fair Romance,
    The Joy of Living called to him, but ah, he wouldn’t hear,
    What did he care if grass were green and skies were blue and clear?

    He knew that profits mounted up, that interest was high,
    But gold of dawn or sunset seemed worthless to his eye,
    For all the fun and frolic, the sorrow or the pain,
    The wonder of the busy world, its struggle, stress and strain,
    Were nothing much but noise to him, and so he toiled along
    And never knew the face of joy or listened to her song.

    For all his greed of heart and hand, his trail of wrong and fraud,
    What punishment shall come to him whose money was his god?
    Behold, he hath his punishment and more he needeth not.
    He gave his very soul for Gold—and Gold is All he got!