Newspaper History

Category: Albuquerque Morning Journal

  • The Joys of the Road

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, March 25, 1915. By Bliss Carman.

    Now the joys of the road are chiefly these,
    A crimson touch on the hardwood trees;

    A vagrant morning wide and blue,
    In early fall, when the wind walks, too;

    A shadowy highway cool and brown,
    Alluring up and enticing down;

    From ripply water to dappled swamp,
    From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

    The outward eye, the quiet will,
    And the striding heart from hill to hill.

    An idle moon, a bubbling spring,
    The sea in the pine-tops murmuring;

    A scrap of gossip at the ferry,
    A comrade neither glum nor merry;

    Asking nothing, revealing naught,
    But minting the words from a fund of thought.

    These are the joys of the open road,
    For him who travels without a load.

  • A Prayer in Time of War

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, March 10, 1915. By Alfred Noyes.

    Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea,
        Whose footsteps are not known,
    Tonight a world that turned from Thee
        Is waiting—at Thy Throne.

    The towering Babels that we raised
        Where scoffing sophists brawl,
    The little Antichrists we praised—
        The night is on them all.

    The fool hath said * * * The fool hath said * * *
        And we, who deemed him wise,
    We who believed that Thou wast dead,
        How should we seek Thine eyes?

    How should we seek to Thee for power
        Who scorned Thee yesterday?
    How should we kneel in this dread hour?
        Lord, teach us how to pray!

    Grant us the single heart once more
        That mocks no sacred thing;
    The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
        When Thou wast Lord and King.

    Let darkness unto darkness tell
        Our deep, unspoken prayer;
    For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
        We know that Thou art there.

  • To a False Patriot

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, March 4, 1915.

    He came obedient to the call;
        He might have shirked, like half his mates
    Who, while their comrades fight and fall
        Still go to swell the football gates.

    And you, a patriot in your prime,
        You waved a flag above his head
    And hoped he’d have a high old time
        And slapped him on the back and said:

    “You’ll show ‘em what we British are!
        Give us your hand, old pal, to shake!”
    And took him round from bar to bar
        And made him drink—for England’s sake.

    That’s how you helped him. Yesterday
        Clear-eyed and earnest, keen and hard,
    He held himself the soldier’s way—
        And now they’ve got him under guard.

    That doesn’t hurt you; you’re all right.
        Your easy conscience takes no blame,
    But he, poor boy, with morning’s light,
        He eats his heart out, sick with shame.

    What’s that to you? You understand
        Nothing of all his bitter pain;
    You have no regiment to brand,
        You have no uniform to stain.

    No vow of service to abuse,
        No pledge to king and country due;
    But he had something dear to lose,
        And he has lost it—thanks to you.

  • Servant Girl and Grocer’s Boy

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, February 17, 1915. By Joyce Kilmer.

    Her lips’ remark was, “Oh, you kid!”
    Her soul spoke thus (I know it did):

    “O King of realms of endless joy,
    My own, my golden grocer’s boy.

    “I am a princess forced to dwell
    Within a lonely kitchen cell.

    “While you go dashing through the land
    With loveliness on every hand,

    “Your whistle strikes my eager ears
    Like music of the choiring spheres.

    “The mighty earth grows faint and reels
    Beneath your thundering wagon wheels.

    “How keenly, perilously sweet
    To cling upon that swaying seat!

    “How happy she who by your side
    May share the splendors of that ride!

    “Ah, if you will not take my hand
    And bear me off across the land,

    “Then, traveler from Arcady,
    Remain a while and comfort me.

    “What other maiden can you find
    So young and delicate and kind?”

    Her lips’ remark was, “Oh, you kid!”
    Her soul spoke thus (I know it did).

  • The Children’s Army

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, February 4, 1915. By Elias Lieberman.

    No tune of tootling fife,
        No beat of the rolling drum,
    And yet with the thrill of life
        The hordes of children come,
    Freckled and chubby and lean,
        Indifferent, good and bad,
    Bedraggled and dirty and clean,
        Richly and poorly clad,
    They come on toddling feet
        To the schoolhouse door ahead;
    The neighboring alley and street
        Resound to the infant tread.
    Children of those who came
        To the land of the promising west,
    Foreign of face and name,
        Are shoulder to shoulder pressed
    With the youth of the native land
        In the quest of truth and light,
    As the valorous little band
        Trudges to left and right.
    Creed and color and race
        Unite from the ends of the earth,
    Blending each noble trace
        In the pride of a glorious birth.
    Race and hate and the past
        Fuse in a melting heat
    As the little hearts beat fast
        To the stir of a common beat,
    A fresher brawn and brain
        For the stock which the fates destroy
    Belong to the cosmic strain
        Of American girl and boy.

  • Once on a Time

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, January 31, 1915. By Kendall Banning.

    Once on a time, once on a time,
        Before the Dawn began,
    There was a nymph of Dian’s train
        Who was beloved of Pan;
    Once on a time a peasant lad
        Who loved a lass at home;
    Once on a time a Saxon king
        Who loved a queen of Rome.

    The world has but one song to sing,
        And it is ever new.
    The first and last of all the songs,
        For it is ever true—
    A little song, a tender song,
        The only song it hath;
    “There was a youth of Ascalon
        Who loved a girl of Gath.”

    A thousand thousand years have gone,
        And aeons still shall pass,
    Yet shall the world forever sing
        Of him who loved a lass—
    An olden song, a golden song,
        And sing it unafraid:
    “There was a youth, once on a time,
        Who dearly loved a maid.”

  • To a Portrait

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, December 2, 1914. By Arthur Symons.

    A pensive photograph
        Watches me from the shelf—
    Ghost of old love and half
        Ghost of myself!

    How the dear waiting eyes
        Watch me and love me yet—
    Sad home of memories,
        Her waiting eyes!

    Ghost of old love, wronged ghost,
        Return, through all the pain
    Of all once loved, long lost,
        Come back again.

    Forget me not, but forgive!
        Alas, too late I cry.
    We are two ghosts that had their chance to live,
        And lost it, she and I.

  • Father Coyote

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, November 22, 1914. By George Sterling.

    At twilight time, when the lamps are lit,
    Father Coyote comes to sit
    At the chaparral’s edge, on the mountain side—
    Comes to listen and to deride
    The rancher’s hound and the rancher’s son,
    The passerby and everyone.
    And we pause at milking time to hear
    His reckless caroling, shrill and clear—
    His terse and swift and valorous troll,
    Ribald, rollicking, scornful, droll,
    As one might sing in coyotedom:
    “Yo! ho! ho! and a bottle of rum!”

    Yet well I wot there is little ease
    Where the turkeys roost in the piñon trees,
    But mute forebodings, canny and grim,
    As they shift and shiver along the limb,
    And the dog flings back an answer brief
    (Curse o’ the honest man on the thief),
    And the cat, till now intent to rove,
    Stalks to her lair by the kitchen stove;
    Not that SHE fears the rogue on the hill;
    But—no mice remain, and—the night is chill.

    And now, like a watchman of the skies,
    Whose glance to a thousand valleys flies,
    The moon glares over the granite ledge—
    Pared a slice on its upper edge.
    And Father Coyote waits no more,
    Knowing that down on the valley floor,
    In a sandy nook, all cool and white,
    The rabbits play and the rabbits fight,
    Flopping, nimble, scurrying,
    Careless now with the surge of spring—
    Furry lover, alack! alas!
    Skims your fate o’er the mountain grass!

  • War

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, November 20, 1914. By Bennett Chapple.

    Gone is the vaunted banner that proclaimed the world for peace,
    The mask is torn asunder and all Hell has seen release.
    The heat of age-old anger now has cracked the thin veneer,
    Ten million men are targets—and all Europe is a bier.
    The mighty guns are booming in their terrifying voice,
    They cut the field like reapers—and the soldiers have no choice.
    They face the rain of bullets, and with manhood’s stalwart zeal
    They march with very souls aflame through jaws of glistening steel.

    Theirs but to fall in windrows deep, cut down by scythes of lead,
    Till truce piles high the harvest there in gory stacks of dead.
    Napoleon took two million lives before he drank his dregs;
    “To make an omelet,” he said, “you have to break some eggs.”
    Ten million men now face the guns—an omelet, in truth—
    Ten million sturdy warriors so full of strength and youth,
    Ten million in uniform, stirred to heroic deeds,
    Ten million men in league with death while Christ in pity pleads.

    The proud world hangs its heartsick head at such a gruesome sight;
    The grim old skeleton of war once more has come to light,
    And savagery has brushed aside all civilizing creed,
    Turned back the clock a hundred years to let the nations bleed.
    What is this pride of nations that will pay such awful price?
    What is this commerce of the world that asks such sacrifice?
    Oh, is it worth the candle that the sombre altars light
    When men—perhaps a million men—are victims of the fight?

  • Testament

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, November 16, 1914. By Sara Teasdale.

    I said, “I will take my life
        And throw it away;
    I who was fire and song
        Will turn to clay.

    “I will lie no more in the night
        With shaken breath.
    I will toss my heart in the air
        To be caught by Death.”

    But out of the night I heard,
        Like the inland sound of the sea,
    The hushed and terrible sob
        Of all humanity.

    Then I said, “Oh, who am I
        To scorn God to His face?
    I will bow my head and stay
        And suffer with my race.”