Newspaper History

Month: September 2021

  • The Night Wind

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 10, 1913. By Eugene Field.

    Did you ever hear the wind go “Yooooo?”
        ’Tis a pitiful sound to hear!
    It seems to thrill you through and through
        With a strange and speechless fear.
    ’Tis the voice of the night that broods outside
        When folk should be asleep,
    And many and many’s the time I’ve cried
    To the darkness brooding far and wide
        Over the land and the deep;
    “Whom do you want, O lonely night
        That you wail the long hours through?”
    And the night would say in its ghostly way:
        Yoooooo!
            Yoooooo!
                Yoooooo!

    My mother told me long ago (when I was a little lad)
        That when the night went wailing so,
    Somebody had been bad;
        And then, when I was snug in bed,
    Whither I had been sent,
        With the blankets pulled up round my head
    I’d think of what my mother said
        And wonder what boy she meant!
    And “Who’s been bad today?” I’d ask
        Of the wind that hoarsely blew,
    And the voice would say in a meaningful way:
        Yoooooo!
            Yoooooo!
                Yoooooo!

    That this was true I must allow,
        You’ll not believe it, though!
    Yes, though I’m quite a model now
        I was not always so,
    And if you doubt what things I say,
        Suppose you make the test;
    Suppose, when you’ve been bad some day
        And up to bed are sent away from mother and the rest—
    Suppose you ask, “Who has been bad?”
        And then you’ll hear what’s true:
    For the wind will moan in its ruefullest tone:
        Yoooooo!
            Yoooooo!
                Yoooooo!

  • Great

    From The Times Dispatch, September 9, 1913. By Roy K. Moulton.

    It’s great to have a million;
        A feller can stand pat;
    Or e’en a hundred thousand—
        A man can live on that.
    And fifty thousand dollars
        Is not so very bad;
    If I could get but thirty
        I’d be most mighty glad.
    I might say that five thousand
        Would look real swell to me,
    Or even say twelve hundred,
        It’s not so bad to see.

    Five hundred ain’t so fancy,
        Some folks would think it tame;
    But I would take one hundred
        And be glad just the same.
    And get right down to fifty,
        Some people call it small,
    But twenty-five is better
        Than having none at all.
    Ten dollars ain’t so many,
        You say, but man alive,
    I’ll give you my opinion,
        It’s great to have a five.

  • The Grand Average

    From the Rock Island Argus, September 8, 1913. By Henry Howland.

    They claim that men are gittin’ so they don’t believe in hell,
    And unless they’re makin’ money folks don’t think they’re doin’ well;
    If all that people tell us of the human race is true
    It would seem as though religion hasn’t got much left to do.
    Here’s a book I’ve jest been readin’, and it says men’s god today
    Ain’t the God our fathers worshiped in their pious, simple way.
    And it’s true that men are crowdin’ for the money they can git
    But I notice that the average is
        Quite
        Good
        Yit.

    I remember when most people thought old Nick would get ‘em sure
    If they stole or lied or cheated or lived lives that wasn’t pure;
    Still, in spite of thinkin’ that way, men would cheat you when they could;
    Fearin’ that there was a devil didn’t seem to keep ‘em good.
    I remember when folks used to set around, afraid, at night,
    Thinkin’ that the old boy’d git ‘em if they didn’t do jest right.
    But that didn’t stop the cheatin’, ner make thievin’ rascals quit,
    And I reckon that the average is
        Quite
        Good
        Yit.

    It’s true a few are tryin’ to grasp all there is in sight,
    And I know that men are cheatin’, they still cheer the ones that fight;
    They have legislated Satan out of bizness, and they say
    That our fathers didn’t worship the same God we do today;
    Men are crowdin’ one another, and they crush and steal and lie,
    Never fearin’ lakes of fire may be ready when they die,
    But there’s others, oh my brothers, that still follow Christ, and it
    Seems to me as though the average is
        Quite
        Good
        Yit.

  • Forever

    From the Evening Star, September 7, 1913. By S. E. Kiser.

    She treated him as if he had
        Been some unworthy thing;
    It seemed, indeed, to make her glad
        To see him worrying.

    She seemed to study how to make
        His moments doubly sad;
    She seemed to want his heart to break,
        His sorrow made her glad.

    At last, believing her to be
        Unworthy and unkind,
    He ceased his pleading, sensibly
        Declining to be blind.

    The moment that he turned away
        And seemed to cease to care
    She humbly called to him to stay,
        And wilted in despair.

    He tenderly forgave her when
        Her tears began to flow;
    For so it is with maids and men—
        It always will be so.

  • Too Late

    From The Times Dispatch, September 6, 1913.

    This poem was written in the dead-house of the Federal prison at Camp Chase, Ohio, by “Col. W. S. H.” of the Confederate army. A fellow-prisoner was engaged to a beautiful Southern lady; she proved faithless, and her letter breaking the troth came soon after his death. This was the colonel’s reply.

    Your letter came, but came too late,
        For Heaven had claimed its own;
    Ah! sudden change from prison bars
        Unto the Great White Throne!
    And yet I think he would have stayed
        For one more day of pain,
    Could he have read those tardy words
        Which you have sent—in vain.

    I wish that you were by me now
        As I draw the sheet aside,
    To see how pure the look he wore
        A while before he died.
    Yet the sorrow that you gave him
        Still had left its weary trace,
    And a meek and saintly sadness
        Dwells upon his pallid face.

    “Her love,” he said, “could change for me
        The winter’s cold to spring”;
    Ah! trust of thoughtless maiden’s love,
        Thou art a bitter thing.
    For when these valleys fair, in May
        Once more with bloom shall wave,
    The Northern violets shall blow
        Above his humble grave.

    Your dole of scanty words had been
        But one more pang to bear;
    Though to the last he kissed with love
        This tress of your soft hair.
    I did not put it where he said,
        For when the angels come
    I would not have them find the sign
        Of falsehood in the tomb.

    Tonight the cold winds whistle by
        As I my vigil keep
    Within the prison dead-house, where
        Few mourners come to weep.
    A rude plank coffin holds him now,
        Yet Death gives always grace;
    And I would rather see him thus
        Than clasped in your embrace.

    Tonight your rooms are very gay
        With wit and wine and song;
    And you are smiling just as if
        You never did a wrong.
    Your hand so fair that none would think
        It penned these words of pain;
    Your skin so white—would God your soul
        Were half so free of stain!

    I’d rather be this dear, dear friend
        Than you in all your glee;
    For you are held in grievous bonds,
        While he’s forever free.
    Whom serve we in this life we serve
        In that which is to come.
    He chose his way, you yours; let God
        Pronounce the fitting doom.

  • The Old Canoe

    From The Birmingham Age-Herald, September 5, 1913. By Albert Pike.

    Where the rocks are gray and the shore is steep,
    And the waters below look dark and deep,
    Where the rugged pine, in its lonely pride
    Leans gloomily over the murky tide,
    Where the reeds and rushes are long and rank
    And the weeds grow thick on the winding bank,
    Where the shadow is heavy the whole day through,
    There lies at its moorings the old canoe.

    The useless paddles are idly dropped,
    Like a sea bird’s wings that the storms had lopped,
    And crossed o’er the railings one o’er one,
    Like the folded hands when the work is done;
    While busily back and forth between
    The spider stretches his silvery screen,
    And the solemn owl, with his dull “too-hoo,”
    Settles down on the side of the old canoe.

    The stern, half sunk in the slimy wave
    Rots slowly away in its living grave,
    And the green moss creeps o’er its dull decay
    Hiding its moldering dust away
    Like the hand that plants o’er the tomb a flower
    Or the ivy that mantles the falling tower,
    While many a blossom of loveliest hue
    Springs up o’er the stern of the old canoe.

    The currentless waters are dead and still,
    But the light wind plays with the boat at will,
    And lazily in and out again
    It floats the length of the rusty chain
    Like the weary march of the hands of time
    That meet and part at the noontide chime,
    And the shore is kissed at each turning anew
    By the dripping bow of the old canoe.

    Oh, many a time, with a careless hand
    I have pushed it away from the pebbly strand,
    And paddled it down where the stream runs quick
    Where the whirls are wide and the eddies thick,
    And laughed as I leaned o’er the rocking side
    And looked below in the broken tide
    The see that the faces and boats were two,
    That were mirrored back from the old canoe.

    But now, as I lean o’er the crumbling side,
    And look below in the broken tide,
    The face that I see there is graver grown,
    And the laugh that I hear has a sobered tone,
    And the hanks that lent to the light skiff wings
    Have grown familiar with sterner things.
    But I love to think of the hours that sped
    As I rocked where the whirls their white spray shed,
    Ere the blossoms waved, or the green grass grew
    O’er the moldering stern of the old canoe.

  • A Small Boy’s Plight

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 4, 1913.

    The call to school makes Willie sad,
    He thinks about the fun he’s had,
    Those leafy coverts cool and dim,
    The stream in which he used to swim,
    The country lanes that lured his feet
    When idle days made life so sweet.
    And then a shadow glooms his face.
    No more he’ll leap and run and race
    As free as any bird of air,
    His heart a stranger to all care.
    Now readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic
    Must be his lot, his teacher’s quick
    And roving eye his nemesis—
    Could any fate be worse than this?

  • The Lazy Day

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, September 3, 1913. By W. D. Nesbit.

    Well, this has been a splendid and a very perfect day;
    I took my work and worries and I threw them all away—
    I took the work I ought to do and looked it in the eye
    And said, “You get a holiday, old task of mine, good bye,
    I hope you have a pleasant time wherever you may roam,
    Now, don’t get lost, but just the same you needn’t hurry home.”

    My work stood begging at my side, my elbow Duty nudged.
    But with a stern and haughty heart I never even budged.
    I stretched myself upon my back within the hammock here
    And swung and swung and let my soul get bubbling full of cheer.
    My work went galley west, I guess—I know it isn’t done—
    But, friend, to have a lazy day is certainly some fun.

    And all the things I worry for and of—the pesky things!
    I gave them all to understand they might as well take wings.
    I’d worried over them in a most faithful, earnest way,
    But worry hasn’t any place in any lazy day.
    Some little worries fretted up and sighed, “What can you do?”
    I blew them all to smithereens with one intense “Pooh! Pooh!”

    So here I am, with work undone, unworried worries, too,
    And still the grass is nice and green, the sky is nice and blue,
    The world is rolling right along, no doubt the stars will gleam—
    I guess I’ll linger here a while and muse and doze and dream.
    My friend, when Work is fighting you and Worry wants to stay,
    Just throw the whole thing to one side and have a Lazy Day.

  • The Bells of Shandon

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 2, 1913. By Francis Mahoney.

    With deep affection,
    And recollection,
    I often think of
        Those Shandon bells,
    Whose sounds so wild would,
    In the days of childhood,
    Fling round my cradle
        Their magic spells.
    On this I ponder
    Where’er I wander,
    And thus grow fonder,
        Sweet Cork, of thee;
    With thy bells of Shandon,
    That sound so grand on
    The pleasant waters
        Of the River Lee.

    I’ve heard bells chiming
    Full many a clime in,
    Tolling sublime in
        Cathedral shrine,
    While at a glib rate
    Brass tongues would vibrate—
    But all their music
        Spoke naught like thine;
    For memory, dwelling
    On each proud swelling
    Of the belfry knelling
        Its bold notes free,
    Made the bells of Shandon
    Sound far more grand on
    The pleasant waters
        Of the River Lee.

    I’ve heard bells tolling
    Old Adrian’s Mole in,
    Their thunder rolling
        From the Vatican,
    And cymbals glorious
    Swinging uproarious
    In the gorgeous turrets
        Of Notre Dame;
    But thy sounds were sweeter
    Than the dome of Peter
    Flings o’er the Tiber,
        Pealing solemnly—
    O the bells of Shandon
    Sound far more grand on
    The pleasant waters
        Of the River Lee.

    There’s a bell in Moscow,
    While on the tower and kiosk O
    In Saint Sophia
        The Turkman gets,
    And loud in air
    Calls men to prayer
    From tapering summits
        Of tall minarets.
    Such empty phantom
    I freely grant them;
    But there’s an anthem
        More dear to me—
    ’Tis the bells of Shandon,
    That sound so grand on
    The pleasant waters
        Of the River Lee.

  • Labor

    From The Seattle Star, September 1, 1913. By Berton Braley.

    Out of chaos, out of murk
    I arose and did my work
    While the ages changed and sped
    I was toiling for my bread
    Underneath my sturdy blows
    Forests fell and cities rose
    And the hard, reluctant soil
    Blossomed richly from my toil.
    Palaces and temples grand
    Wrought I with my cunning hand.
    Rich indeed was my reward—
    Stunted soul, and body scarred
    With the marks of scourge and rod
    I, the tiller of the sod
    From the cradle to the grave
    Shambled through the world—a slave!
    Crushed and trampled, beaten, cursed,
    Serving best, but served the worst,
    Starved and cheated, gouged and spoiled
    Still I builded, still I toiled
    Undernourished, underpaid
    In the world myself had made.

    Up from slavery I rise,
    Dreams and wonder in my eyes,
    After brutal ages past
    Coming to my own at last
    I was slave—but I am free!
    I was blind—but I can see!
    I, the builder, I the maker,
    I, the calm tradition-breaker,
    Slave and serf and clod no longer,
    Know my strength—and who is stronger?
    I am done with ancient frauds,
    Ancient lies and ancient gods—
    All that sham is overthrown,
    I shall take and keep my own
    Unimpassioned, unafraid,
    Master of the World I’ve made!