{"id":7008,"date":"2021-02-26T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poetry.newspaperhistory.com\/?p=624"},"modified":"2021-02-26T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T06:00:00","slug":"living-too-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/living-too-long\/","title":{"rendered":"Living Too Long"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\"><em>From the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/chroniclingamerica.loc.gov\/lccn\/sn83045462\/1913-02-26\/ed-1\/seq-20\/\"><em>Evening Star, February 26, 1913<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em>\n <em>By Walt Mason.<\/em>\n \n\n I would not care to live, my dears\n Much more than seven hundred years\n \u00a0 \u00a0 If I should last that long;\n For I would tire of things in time\n And life at last would seem a crime\n \u00a0 \u00a0 And I a public wrong.\n Old Gaffer Goodworth, whom you know\n Was born a hundred years ago\n \u00a0 \u00a0 And states the fact with mirth;\n He\u2019s rather proud that he has hung\u00a0\n Around so long while old and young\n \u00a0 \u00a0 Were falling off the earth.\n But when his boastful fit is gone\n A sadness comes his face upon\n \u00a0 \u00a0 That speaks of utter woe;\n He sits and broods and dreams again\n Of vanished days, of long dead men,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 His friends of long ago.\n There is no loneliness so dread\n As that of one who mourns his dead\n \u00a0 \u00a0 In white and wintry age;\n Who when the lights extinguished are\n The other players scattered far\n \u00a0 \u00a0 Still lingers on the stage.\n There is no solitude so deep\n As that of him whose friends, asleep\n \u00a0 \u00a0 Shall visit him no more;\n Shall never ask, \u201cHow do you stack,\u201d\n Or slap him gaily on the back\n \u00a0 \u00a0 As in the days of yore.\n I do not wish to draw my breath\n Until the papers say that death\n \u00a0 \u00a0 Has passed me up for keeps;\n When I am tired I want to die\n And in my cozy casket lie\n \u00a0 \u00a0 As one who calmly sleeps.\n When I am tired of dross and gold\n When I am tired of heat and cold\n \u00a0 \u00a0 And happiness has waned,\n I want to show the neighbor folk\n How gracefully a man can croak\n \u00a0 \u00a0 When he\u2019s correctly trained.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> I would not care to live, my dears<br \/>\n Much more than seven hundred years<br \/>\n     If I should last that long;<br \/>\n For I would tire of things in time<br \/>\n And life at last would seem a crime<br \/>\n     And I a public wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,3],"tags":[307],"class_list":["post-7008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evening-star","category-newspapers","tag-walt-mason"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}