From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 13, 1915.
If we were cured
Of all our ills,
The man would starve
Who makes the pills.
Category: Newspapers
This is the parent category for all individual newspapers.
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Live and Let Live
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Around the Hearth
From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 12, 1915. By John Greenleaf Whittier.
Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door
While the red logs before us beat
The frost line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed.The house dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
A mug of cider simmering slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood. -
Mysteries
From The Topeka State Journal, February 10, 1915. By Edmund Vance Cooke.
Twenty bad men in the bar one night,
Each one shoving his foot on the rail;
None of them sober and most of them tight,
Every one cussing to kick up a fight,
Each one a devil and swinging his tail;
Most of them dead when the scrap was done—
Nobody knew how the row had begun!A squally day and a celluloid boat,
Launched on a river of gasoline;
“As freaky a craft as was ever afloat,”
The captain swore in his husky throat,
“With her firebox next to her magazine.”
He lighted his pipe and tossed his match—
Now how could the conflagration catch?Generals, admirals, emperors, kings,
And babes from the cradle trained to kill;
Davids swinging Goliath slings,
Navies filled with eagle wings,
Nations of armies, life a drill.
Courtiers cunning in wild excuse—
What a surprise when the war broke loose! -
Little Brown Hands
From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, February 9, 1915.
They drive home the cows from the pasture
Up thro’ the long, shady lane,
Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat field
That is yellow with ripening grain.They find in the thick, waving grasses
Where the scarlet-lipped strawberry grows;
They gather the earliest snowdrops
And the first crimson buds of the rose.They toss the hay in the meadow,
They gather the elder-bloom white;
They find where the dusky grapes purple
In the soft-tinted October light.They know where the apples hang ripest
And are sweeter than Italy’s wines;
They know where the fruit hangs thickest
On the long, thorny blackberry vines.They gather the delicate seaweeds,
And build tiny castles of sand;
They pick up the beautiful seashells,
Fairy barks, that have drifted to land.They wave from the tall, rocking tree-tops,
Where the oriole’s hammock-nest swings;
And at night time are folded in slumber
By a song that a fond mother sings.Those who toil bravely are strongest,
The humble and poor become great;
And from those brown-handed children
Shall grow mighty rulers of state.The pen of the author and statesman,
The noble and wise of our land—
The sword and the chisel and palette
Shall be held in the little brown hand. -
’Tis Life Beyond
From the Newark Evening Star, February 8, 1915.
I watched a sail until it dropped from sight
Over a rounding sea. A gleam of white—
A last far-flashed farewell, and like a thought
Slipt out of mind, it vanished and was not.Yet to the helmsman standing at the wheel
Broad seas still stretched beneath the gliding keel.
Disaster? Change? He felt no slightest sign,
Nor dreamed he of that far horizon line.So may it be, perchance, when down the tide
Our dear ones vanish, peacefully they glide
On level seas, nor mark the unknown bound.
We call it death—to them ’tis life beyond. -
My Son!
From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 7, 1915.
Yes, sir, I know; and your words are kind, an’ I tell you, sir, I’ve tried
To think we can find the things we’ve lost, when we get to the other side.
I’d give all I’ve got, sir, to know ’twas true, but I can’t, I just can’t see
How some of those lost, those dear lost things’ll ever come back to me.
I shall see her there; I know she stands right close to the pearly gate,
Waitin’; and soon I too’ll be there; she won’t have long to wait,
But when she asks for the boy—our boy—‘at she left when she went away—
Asks all those questions a mother will—Oh, what am I going to say?
Well, as I know he’s been dead this many and many a year,
Do you think I’d dare to ask up there, “What! haven’t you seen him here?”God gives men power for good or ill that ain’t for this world alone;
They can lift a soul to the gates up there in the light of the great white throne,
Or sink it low as they sunk my boy—such beautiful eyes he had—
Brown like his mother’s—you’d never have thought such eyes could have turned out so bad.
An’ he wern’t bad either, but true and good, but—perhaps you know the rest—
There was only one for to bring him up, and I tried to do my best;
But the world, an’ the flesh, an’ the drink are strong an’ some men’s hearts are stone,
An’ I tell you it seemed sometimes as if I was fightin’ ‘em all alone.
For them as’ll lift their fellowmen there’s waitin’ a starry crown,
But honor and power and wealth is got by them as’ll pull ‘em down.Most men they hope for the crown sometime, but they want it the shortest way,
An’ they do their best an’ their hardest work for a different sort o’ pay.
So, the world spins on at its rattlin’ gait as hard as ever she can,
An’ it don’t much matter that boys are lost if they belong to some other man.
One night—dead drunk—they brought him home—my boy—an’ I laid him there,
The blood of a street fight on his face, an’ the gutter mud in his hair.
He never knew me nor spoke again, drunk an’ asleep he died,
An’ I prayed that his mother’d never know how we laid him by her side.
Yes, the golden streets an’ the jasper walls—I’ve read of ‘em all—but then
Do you believe, sir, that over there I shall find my boy again? -
Creeds
From The Bridgeport Evening Farmer, February 6, 1915.
Believe as I believe, no more, no less;
That I am right, and no one else, confess;
Feel as I feel, think only as I think;
Eat what I eat, and drink but what I drink;
Look as I look, do always as I do,
And then, and only then, I’ll fellowship with you.That I am right, and always right, I know,
Because my own convictions tell me so;
And to be right is simply this to be
Entirely and in all respects like me;
To deviate a hair’s breadth, or begin
To question, doubt, or hesitate, is sin.I reverence the Bible if it be
Translated first and then explained by me;
By churchly laws and customs I abide,
If they with my opinion coincide;
All creeds and doctrines I admit divine,
Excepting those which disagree with mine.Let sink the drowning if he will not swim
Upon the plank that I throw out to him;
Let starve the hungry if he will not eat
My kind and quality of bread and meat;
Let freeze the naked if he will not be
Clothed in such garments as are made for me.‘Twere better that the sick should die than live,
Unless they take the medicine I give;
‘Twere better sinners perish than refuse
To be conformed to my peculiar views;
‘Twere better that the world stand still than move
In any other way than that which I approve. -
In Memoriam
From the Evening Journal, February 5, 1915.
How long he struggled against disease,
That baffled skill and care;
How long he lingered, racked with pain,
And suffering hard to bear.Hour by hour we saw him fade,
And slowly sink away,
Yet in our hearts we prayed
That he might longer stay.His willing hands are folded
His toils on earth are done;
His troubles are all ended,
His heavenly crown is won.Oft we wander to the graveyard,
Flowers to place with loving care;
On the grave of our dear father,
Who so sweetly sleepeth there. -
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.