Newspaper History

Month: October 2022

  • A Great Leader

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, October 21, 1914.

    An Emporer went to the front,
        With colors proudly flying;
    His soldiers bore the battle’s brunt,
        The wounded and the dying.

    Upon a hill he viewed the scene,
        Beyond the range of firing,
    Or telephoned his troopers keen
        With energy untiring.

    At noon he scarcely stopped to take
        A cup o’ tea to warm him,
    Brewed by a chef too prone to quake
        Lest anything should harm him.

    The shades of night came down ere long
        And closed the bloody battle,
    And quiet reigned the hosts among,
        Save for the foe’s death rattle.

    Informed the victory was won,
        The monarch’s heart grew lighter
    And much he plumed himself upon
        His prowess as a fighter.

  • The Bitter Wit

    From the Newark Evening Star, October 20, 1914.

    To speak unkindly isn’t wit,
        To say things that wound the heart
    Is never clever—not a bit.
        Though at the time you think it smart,
    Far better is it to remain
        As silent as a marble bust
    Than speak and leave a track of pain
        Behind a smiling, bitter thrust.

    The poisoned barb within a jest
        That leaves a fellow being hurt
    Is not a cleverness the test,
        Nor of a brain that is alert.
    To gibe at age or private scars,
        Or sacred griefs proclaims the cad
    And he who does it sadly mars
        The laughter that should leave us glad.

    Unkindness isn’t wit at all,
        There’s little humor in a sneer.
    One cannot drench his speech in gall
        And seek to laugh away the tear.
    And he who poisons thus the gay
        Is just as cowardly as he
    Who kicks a cripple’s crutch away
        And laughs his helplessness to see.

  • First Love

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, October 19, 1914. By W. W. Hendree.

    Who has not had some little life-romance—
        Some dream of love so painful, yet so sweet?
    Who has not felt his heart thrilled by a glance,
        Nor known the ecstacy when fond lips meet?
    Such things grow tasteless as the years advance
        And age cools down the blood from feverheat;
    But still, although the thought of passion dies,
        We linger fondly o’er its memories.

    Few ever marry their first early love;
        But after one has mingled in the strife
    Of varied passions—after fate has wove
        More than one broken thread into his life,
    Then he begins to feel the dearth of love,
        And takes into his heart and home a wife;
    And oft, though love be wanting at the first,
        A sweet affection grows, by circumstances nursed.

    But still through all there oftentimes will break
        A whisper of the past we had thought dumb,
    And recollections swift and sweet will make
        The present seem so sad and wearisome;
    It sometimes seems as if the heart would break
        In thinking of the dreary years to come,
    And for the moment in our hearts we sin
        With vain regrets of that which might have been.

  • All Quiet in Mars

    From The Sun, October 18, 1914.

    Things quiet seem among the stars,
        And that is quite a boon.
    There is no turbulence on Mars,
        No warfare on the moon.

    The other planets seem benign
        As peacefully they glow.
    On none of them we see a sign
        Of violence or woe.

    While this war is the biggest fight
        That ever time brought forth,
    It looks at least as if we might
        Confine it to the earth.

  • Trees

    From the Harrisburg Telegraph, October 17, 1914.

    However little I may be
    At least I too can plant a tree.

    And some day it will grow so high
    That it can whisper to the sky

    And spread its leafy branches wide
    To make a shade on every side.

    Then on a sultry summer day,
    The people resting there will say—

    “Oh, good and wise and great was he
    Who thought to plant this blessed tree!”

  • Wasted Firelight

    From The Topeka State Journal, October 16, 1914. By Fannie Stearns Davis.

    I lit the fire for you alone,
        And then you never came.
    The Others sat here, while the blown
        Red rapture of the flame

    Swept up the chimney to the night,
        They sat and looked at me.
    They found me fair by that firelight
        You never came to see.

    The Others love me more than you;
        Yet I was angry. I
    Knelt down beside the hearth and blew
        The brands to make them die.

    Love is a foolish, jealous thing.
        I would not have them share
    The flame that I set glorying
        For you, who do not care!

  • Gone

    From The Topeka State Journal, October 15, 1914.

    Gone with the mists and rains,
    Slipp’d from old mem’ry’s chains,
    Deep with the shadows blent
    Heaped is the cash we’ve spent.
    Sums that we lingered o’er,
    Bills that once made us sore,
    Things we were forced to buy,
    Charges that made us sigh,
    Gifts we could ill afford,
    Cash paid for bed and board,
    Cash for our petty needs,
    Cash for our festive feeds,
    Cash for a thousand things
    Gone on the swiftest wings.

    Whither it flies, or fares,
    Now that it’s gone, who cares?

  • The Calamatist

    From the Evening Star, October 14, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

        Oh, the man who utters warnings,
        He is busy nights and mornings!
    He is busy in the north and in the south!
        He reminds us of the evil
        That attends each moth or weevil,
    And is particularly eloquent on drouth.
        He will talk about the weather,
        He will get reports together
    From the musty, dusty data of the past,
        And he’ll have you a-tremble,
        Till your fears you can’t dissemble,
    Every time the sky is slightly overcast.
        He will take the saddest cases
        Of all history for the basis
    Of a wail which to the present he’ll apply.
        All the tragedy and sorrow
        Of the ages he will borrow
    And parade them with a melancholy sigh.
        We respect him while we fear him
        As we grimly pause to hear him
    Giving notice of a future very blue.
        Then we conquer our dejection
        By the pertinent reflection
    That the most of what he says does not come true.

  • Out of Reach

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, October 13, 1914. By Kate W. Hamilton.

    The grapes on the trellis are purple and sweet,
    They tempt little fingers and clambering feet.
    We will pick them all, there are plenty for each,
    But it’s strange how the finest grow just out of reach.

    But grandfather says—he’s old and wise—
    That the difference is not in the grapes, but our eyes.
    That the things within reach never please us so much
    As the things we can’t have, that are just beyond touch.

    There are beautiful grapes that we crush with our feet
    While we eagerly climb for others more sweet;
    That fruit within reach is the fruit for the day,
    And to pluck as you go is the sensible way.

    Oh, grandfather’s wise, for grandfather is old;
    But no matter how often we all have been told,
    At the vines every morning, it seems to us each
    That the very best grapes are the grapes out of reach.

  • The Coal Picker

    From The Topeka State Journal, October 12, 1914. By Amy Lowell.

    He perches in the slime, inert,
    Bedaubed with iridescent dirt.
    The oil upon the puddles dries
    To colours like a peacock’s eyes,
    And half-submerged tomato cans
    Shine scaly, as leviathans
    Oozily crawling through the mud.
    The ground is here and there bestud
    With lumps of only part-burned coal.
    His duty is to glean the whole,
    To pick them from the filth, each one,
    To hoard them for the hidden sun
    Which glows within each fiery core
    And waits to be made free once more.
    Their sharp and glistening edges cut
    His stiffened fingers. Through the smut
    Gleam red the wounds which will not shut.
    Wet through and shivering he kneels
    And digs the slippery coals; like eels
    They slide about. His force all spent,
    He counts his small accomplishment.
    A half-a-dozen clinker-coals
    Which still have fire in their souls.
    Fire! And in his thought there burns
    The topaz fire of votive urns.
    He sees it fling from hill to hill,
    And still consumed, is burning still.
    Higher and higher leaps the flame,
    The smoke an ever-shifting frame.
    He sees a Spanish Castle old,
    With silver steps and paths of gold.
    From myrtle bowers comes the splash
    Of fountains, and the emerald flash
    Of parrots in the orange trees,
    Whose blossoms pasture humming bees.
    He knows he feeds the urns whose smoke
    Bears visions, that his master-stroke
    Is out of dirt and misery
    To light the fire of poesy.
    He sees the glory, yet he knows
    That others cannot see his shows.
    To them his smoke is sightless, black,
    His votive vessels but a pack
    Of old discarded shards, his fire
    A peddler’s; still to him the pyre
    Is incensed, an enduring goal!
    He sighs and grubs another coal.