Newspaper History

Month: April 2023

  • The Glory of the Garden

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 10, 1915. By Rudyard Kipling.

    Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
    Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
    With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
    But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

    For where the old thick laurels grow along the thin red wall,
    You’ll find the tool and potting sheds which are the heart of all,
    The cold frames and the hothouses, the dung pits and the tanks,
    The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

    And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and ’prentice boys
    Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
    For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
    The glory of the garden it abideth not in words.

    And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
    And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
    But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
    For the glory of the garden occupieth all who come.

    Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
    By singing, “Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade
    While better men than we go out and start their working lives
    At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner knives.

    There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick,
    There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick,
    But it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done,
    For the glory of the garden glorifieth every one.

    Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
    If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
    And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden
    You will find yourself a partner in the glory of the garden.

    Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
    That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees,
    So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
    For the glory of the garden that it may not pass away!
    And the glory of the garden it shall never pass away!

  • The Baby

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 9, 1915. By Victor Hugo.

    Like the tiny glint of light piercing through the dusty gloom
    Comes her little laughing face through the shadows of my room.

    And my pen forgets its way as it hears the patt’ring tread
    While her prattling treble tones chase the thought from out my head.

    She is queen and I her slave, one who loves her and obeys
    For she rules her world of home with imperious baby ways.

    In she dances, calls me “Dear!” turns the pages of my books
    Thrones herself upon my knee, takes my pen with laughing looks.

    Makes disorder reign supreme, turns my papers upside down,
    Draws me cabalistic signs, safe from fear of any frown.

    Crumples all my verses up, pleased to hear the crackling sound;
    Makes them into balls, and then—flings them all upon the ground.

    Suddenly she flits away, leaving me alone again
    With a warmth about my heart, and a brighter, clearer brain.

    And although the thoughts return that her coming drove away
    The remembrance of her laugh lingers with me through the day.

    And it chances, as I write, I may take a crumpled sheet
    On which, God knoweth why! read my fancies twice as sweet.

  • Company K

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, April 8, 1915. By Gilbert Fletcher.

    He sang and hummed in his workshop,
        Whittled and carved all day,
    That the children of many nations
        Could have his toys for play.

    Rank after rank of soldiers,
        Wonderfully finished and done,
    Stood on the shelves above him,
        Armed with their wooden guns.

    Company I was finished.
        He was carving at Company K,
    Dreaming of children who’d love them
        In lands that were far away.

    Dreamed of a child commander,
        Of his wooden soldiers arow,
    Facing a Teddy bear peril,
        Bent on destroying the foe.

    Laughed and sang and was happy,
        As he thought of these men at war,
    When the bear charged in among them
        And scattered them over the floor.

    Company K is unfinished,
        Unpainted and covered with dust.
    Their helmets are tarnished and dingy
        And speckled with spots of rust.

    They have waited long in this armory shop
        For the swing of the workshop door,
    Trying to fathom and figure the time
        That he will be gone to war.

    So they can’t understand why this woman
        Cried in this shop today
    As she tenderly kissed the dusty men
        Who were to be Company K.

  • A Mother’s Vision

    From the Rock Island Argus, April 7, 1915. By Gertrude Hockridge.

    Sitting alone in the firelight, with aged head bent low
    Over some little garments that were worn in the long ago,
    A woman, old and faded, was dreaming of other years
    And the faces of absent loved ones she saw through a mist of tears.

    All was silent; no echo of footfalls swift and gay;
    The dancing feet of her children had wandered far away.
    Busy and happy and thoughtless, they were scattered far and wide;
    All grown to be men and women—save the little boy who died.

    It was strange that of all the children, he should feel tonight so near.
    His little grave had been covered by the snows of many a year;
    Yet she fancied she saw him enter, that she saw him standing there,
    His blue eyes clear and smiling, the light on his curling hair.

    And a voice spoke from the silence, saying, “This for you I kept;
    But my meaning you could not fathom when for your child you wept.
    The living have left your hearthstone, but with you he shall abide
    In the beauty of deathless childhood, your little boy who died.”

  • Mr. Taft’s Advice

    From The Topeka State Journal, April 6, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

    “Don’t marry scrubs,” says Mr. Taft, and makes a subtle pause,
    So all the rapt and listening maids can ripple their applause.
    Indeed, ’tis sage and sound advice, for once a wedded wife,
    A girl who’s married to a scrub will lead an awful life.
    A scrub will loaf, a scrub will booze, he’ll gamble if it please him;
    But how, pray tell us, is a girl to know one when she sees him?
    A chesty fellow comes along, with manners like John Drew;
    A knitted tie and green silk socks and eyes of lovely blue.
    He looks the goods from heel to hair—a regular high life swell;
    He might well be a Claude Melnotte, but how’s a girl to tell?
    It means an awful lot to her, for if she is mistaken
    She’ll be the one to suffer when he can’t bring home the bacon.
    Another knock-kneed, seedy guy, who drives a grocery cart
    May have beneath his battered vest a fourteen-karat heart.

  • A Man

    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.

  • Spring Bloom

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 4, 1915. By Juliet Wilbor Tompkins.

    The spring desire is on me, for the shops are all athrong,
    And the longing to be spending is a fever and a song.
    I will buy a frock of linen, silver green and grassy cool,
    Oh, a linen like a willow, with the mirror for a pool!
    I will buy a lacy jacket and a rosy morning cap;
    Ah, mother don’t be angry—it’s the rising of the sap.

    The spring desire is on me, and I cannot sleep at night,
    For my stockings shall be azure, and my shoes a dancing white.
    There shall roses be and ribbons round the hat that I shall trim,
    Oh, a laughing hat to crown me, with a shadow in the brim!
    I will choose the fairest colors, I will buy the finest weaves;
    Ah, mother please forgive me—I am putting out my leaves.

    Let me out into the morning—oh, my heart is on ahead
    To the heaped and growing counters of the city garden bed.
    I must fold away the winter, I must make me fine and sweet
    From the throat that’s full of singing to the glory of my feet!
    I will buy a silver tissue, I will buy a golden plume;
    Ah, mother you remember—I am bursting into bloom!

  • The Illusion of War

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, April 3, 1915. By Richard Le Gallienne.

    War
    I abhor.
    And yet, how sweet
    The sound along the marching street
    Of drum and fife, and I forget
    Wet eyes of widows, and forget
    Broken old mothers, and the whole
    Dark butchery without a soul.

    Without a soul, save this bright drink
    Of heady music, sweet as hell;
    And even my peace-abiding feet
    Go marching with the marching street,
    For yonder, yonder comes the fife,
    And what care I for human life?

    And tears fill my astonished eyes,
    And my full heart is like to break;
    And yet, ’tis all embannered lies,
    A dream those little drummers make.
    Oh, it is wickedness to clothe
    Yon hideous grinning thing that stalks,
    Hidden in music like a queen,
    That in a garden of glory walks
    Till good men love the thing they loathe.
    Art, thou hast many infamies,
    But not an infamy like this.
    Oh, stop the fife and still the drum,
    And show the monster as she is.

  • All the Time

    From the Evening Journal, April 2, 1915. By James Buckham.

    There’s a prosy kind of motto that you’ll find is very rife
    With the people you most envy for their rare success in life.
    I’ll admit it’s not romantic, has no touch of the sublime,
    But it’s just the rule to work by—namely, At it all the time.

    You’ll observe that men and women, who, ’tis said, have made their mark
    Do not drop the chalk of effort at the first approach of dark;
    And you’ll find them at life’s blackboard when the sun begins to climb
    For, obedient to their motto, they keep at it all the time.

    The thing God sets them doing gets to be their chief delight;
    ’Tis their first thought in the morning, and their last concern at night.
    They will turn away from pleasure just as promptly as from crime;
    Simple duty is their safeguard, for they’re at it all the time.

  • The Merry Robin

    From the Evening Star, April 1, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    A robin sat upon a limb,
        A-singin’ very jolly.
    “Oh bird,” sez I, I sez to him,
        “You should be melancholy!

    “You haven’t any children small,
        No friends nor no relations;
    You’ve got no certainty at all
        Of lodgin’ or of rations.

    “You haven’t got no place to went,
        You loafer in a tree, you!
    Or if you have, I bet a cent
        No one is glad to see you.”

    The robin stopped his song an’ said,
        “Excuse me while I snicker.
    It is the narrow life you’ve led
        That makes you such a kicker.

    “This limb I sit on ain’t so fine
        And scant is my apparel;
    A simple sort o’ feed is mine,
        And yet I love to carol.

    “While thinkin’ on my state of ease
        My soul in song relaxes.
    I go an’ come jest when I please
        An’ never pay no taxes.”