Category: Omaha Daily Bee

From the Omaha Daily Bee, October 20, 1913. By E. A. Guest.

“Go up and change your collar,” mother often says to me.
“For you can’t go out in that one, it’s as dirty as can be.
There are splotches on the surface where they very plainly show.”
“That is very queer,” I answer, “it was clean an hour ago.”
But I guess just what has happened, and in this it’s clearly summed:
He who lets a baby love him often gets his collar thumbed.

I have gone downtown o’ mornings thinking I was clean and neat,
And have had some kind friend stop me as I walked along the street
With the startling information that I wore a collar soiled,
As he saw the prints and traces where those little thumbs had toiled;
And I’ve made this explanation—it’s a song I long have hummed—
He who loves a little baby often gets his collar thumbed.

And I’m rather proud I reckon to have people here allude
To the prints upon my collars; they’re my badge of servitude.
They’re the proudest marks I carry, and I really dread the day
When there’ll be no sticky fingers, when I start to go away,
To reach up and soil my neckwear, and my heart sometimes is numbed
When I think the day is coming when my collars won’t be thumbed.

From the Omaha Daily Bee, October 18, 1913.

Over the mountains
    And over the waves,
Under the fountains
    And under the graves;
Under floods that are deepest,
    Which Neptune obey;
Over rocks that are steepest
    Love will find out the way.

Where there is no place
    For the glowworm to lie;
Where there is no space
    For receipt of a fly;
Where the midge dares not venture
    Lest herself fast she lay;
If love come, he will enter
    And soon find out his way.

You may esteem him
    A child for his might;
Or you may deem him
    A coward from his flight;
But if she whom love doth honor
    Be conceal’d from the day,
Set a thousand guards upon her,
    Love will find out the way.

Some think to lose him
    By having him confined;
And some do suppose him
    Poor thing to be blind;
But if ne’er so close ye wall him,
    Do the best that you may,
Blind love, if so ye call him,
    Will find out his way.

You may train the eagle
    To stoop to your fist;
Or you may inveigle
    The phoenix of the east;
The lioness ye may move her
    To give o’er her prey;
But you’ll ne’er stop a lover;
    He will find out his way.

From the Omaha Daily Bee, October 13, 1913. By Minna Irving.

There was a man who yearned to be
    Right in the public eye,
He dreamed at night about his name
    In letters six feet high.
So first he went upon the stage
    And spouted tragic stuff,
But only played to empty seats,
    And left it in a huff.

A preacher next, he made the dust
    From pulpit-cushions soar,
But quit because a greater man
    Had pounded them before.
He lectured, but with scant success,
    And then he tried to write,
But failure sat upon his pen,
    And nipped his genius bright.

So having found that fame and gold
    For him refused to mix,
For want of something else to try
    He entered politics.
He took a phrase he used to scrawl
    In copy-books at school
To be his slogan at the polls:
    ’Twas, “Let the People Rule.”

He painted it on banners gay
    And flung them overhead,
He thundered it in every speech,
    (The only thing he said.)
Believing that he spoke the truth,
    The people, far and wide,
As their deliverer greeted him,
    And rallied to his side.

Behold him now, a demagogue
    In office waxing fat,
The public at his door must wait
    His pleasure on the mat.
And does he let the people rule,
    Or even have their say?
You bet he never does, but lo!
    He lets the people pay.

From the Omaha Daily Bee, October 8, 1913.

Go, little song,
    Your message bringing
To hearts that long
    Have known no singing;

To hearts that hold
    No glad tomorrows;
To hearts grown old
    With cares and sorrows.

Sing but a lay
    Of woodside rambles;
Of autumn day
    And berry brambles.

Of gain and pelf
    Make men forgetful;
Of thought of self
    And worries fretful.

Take back the heart
    To babbling fountains—
From street and mart
    To storied mountains.

Of rainbow’s end
    And golden treasure
A message send,
    Perchance of pleasure;

Of country sights
    And village steeples;
Of fairy sprites
    And elfin peoples;

Of woodland rill
    And dancing shadows;
Of daffodil
    And sun-shot meadows.

Make young again
    The heart that hardens;
Sing of the rain
    And old-time gardens.

Go, little song,
    For joy intended;
Return ere long,
    Your mission ended.

From the Omaha Daily Bee, September 29, 1913.

Consider, ere you take a wife,
The pros and cons of wedded life.
Protracted wedlock’s safe to show
Vices contracted long ago—
The product of the honeymoon
Appears in conduct, very soon.
’Tis bliss profound to love, no doubt
But cares confound when love’s burnt out.

Professions maidens deem their due,
But wives demand confessions, too!
Where maids the merest protest heed,
A vigorous contest wives oft need!
The maid convokes the joys of life,
The wife provokes—this leads to strife.

Hugs in profusion maids allot
Confusion is the underplot!
Yet doubtless wedlocks product should,
All said and done, conduce to good—
In the procession, if you’d take
Your proper place, concessions make—
The province of this humble verse
Is to convince—things might be worse!