Category: Newspapers

This is the parent category for all individual newspapers.

  • Hypnotism

    From The Topeka State Journal, April 3, 1913.
     By Roy K. Moulton.
     
    
     He fell upon his bended knees
     And said: “Oh Agnes, wed me please.”
     He told her that she was his queen
     The grandest gal he’d ever seen
     That no one had no eyes like her’n—
     At least so fur as he could learn.
     He said he’d never seen so rare
     And gorgeous a display of hair.
     He said her figger was immense
     And hoped she wouldn’t take offense
     Because he mentioned such a thing,
     For of it poets often sing.
     He said he’d traveled all around
     And never had he heard a sound
     So musical as was her voice.
     She was his one and only choice.
     He’d give her all he had to give,
     Without her he could never live.
     No friend was by, his speech to stay.
     He wound up in the usual way.
     She gave to him her maiden heart—
     It was a cinch right from the start.
     
     For, while she let him have his say,
     He had no chance to get away.
     She had him lashed right to the mast
     And tied and shackled hard and fast.
     He didn’t know what he had said,
     He simply knew that they were wed;
     And when to breakfast she came down,
     Years later in an old house gown,
     Without a sign of curl or rat,
     And ready for the daily spat,
     He wondered how in thunder she
     Could have inspired the ecstasy
     Upon that great momentous night
     On which he made and won his fight.
     And then it percolates his brain
     As it has done time and again
     That she just had him hypnotized
     Until he raved and idolized.
  • The Washer Woman’s Song

    From The Birmingham Age-Herald, April 2, 1913.
     By Tronquill.
     
    
     In a very humble cot,
     In a rather quiet spot,
     In the suds and in the soap,
     Worked a woman full of hope;
     Working, singing all alone,
     In a sort of undertone,
     “With a savior for a friend,
     He will keep me to the end.”
     
     Sometimes happening along,
     I had heard the semisong,
     And I often used to smile
     More in sympathy than guile;
     But I never said a word
     In regard to what I heard,
     As she sang about her friend
     Who would keep her to the end.
     
     Not in sorrow nor in glee,
     Working all day long was she,
     As her children, three or four,
     Played around her on the floor;
     But in monotones the song
     She was humming all day long,
     “With the savior for a friend,
     He will keep me to the end.”
     
     It’s a song I do not sing,
     For I scarce believe a thing
     Of the stories that are told
     Of the miracles of old;
     But I know that her belief
     Is the anodyne of grief,
     And will always be a friend
     That will keep her to the end.
     
     Just a trifle lonesome she,
     Just as poor as poor could be,
     But her spirit always rose
     Like the bubbles in the clothes.
     And, though widowed and alone,
     Cheered with the monotone,
     Of a Savior and a friend,
     Who would keep her to the end.
     
     I have seen her rub and scrub
     On the washboard in the tub,
     While the baby sopped in suds,
     Rolled and tumbled in the duds;
     Or was paddling in the pools
     With old scissors stuck in spools,
     She still humming of her friend
     Who would keep her to the end.
     
     Human hopes and human creeds
     Have their root in human needs;
     And I would not wish to strip
     From that washer woman’s lip
     Any song that she can sing,
     Any hope that song can bring.
     For the woman has a friend
     Who will keep her to the end.
  • Consistency

    From The Tacoma Times, April 1, 1913.
     By Berton Braley.
     
    
     He raved at women’s folly
         In following the fads,
     Declared, with melancholy,
         His money went in scads
     To sate his wifie’s passion
         For shoes and hats and those
     Materials of fashion
         Like lingerie and hose.
     
     At corsets he was sneering,
         At powder and at paint,
     Tight shoes would set him jeering
         With words not few or faint;
     He laughed at bogus tresses;
         He scorned the hobble skirt,
     Condemning women’s dresses
         With vim and vigor curt.
     
     So wifie dressed one morning
         To please her hubby’s taste,
     All artifices scorning,
         Uncorseted her waist;
     Her shoes of size most ample
         (A hygienic last)
     She meant, she said, to trample
         Her follies of the past.
     
     Her nose was free from powder,
         Her hair was all her own,
     Yet far from feeling prouder
         At how her sense had grown,
     Her husband bellowed, “Woman,
         You look a perfect fright;
     Go dress like something human;
         You surely are a sight!”
  • Ae Fond Kiss

    From The Birmingham Age-Herald, March 31, 1913.
     By Robert Burns.
     
    
     Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
     Ae farewell, alas! Forever!
     Deep in heart wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
     Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.
     Who shall say that fortune grieves him,
     While the star of hope she leaves him?
     Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;
     Dark despair around benights me.
     
     I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy,
     Naething could resist my Nancy;
     But to see her was to love her;
     Love but her, and love forever,
     Had we never loved sae kindly,
     Had we never loved sae blindly,
     Never met—or never parted,
     We had ne’er been broken hearted.
     
     Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
     Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
     Thine be like a joy and treasure,
     Peace, enjoyment, love and pleasure!
     Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
     Ae fareweel, alas! Forever!
     Deep in heart wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
     Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee!
  • In Storm and Stress

    From the New York Tribune, March 30, 1913.
     By W. J. Lampton.
     
    
     How weak is man when nature’s wrath
     Pours out itself upon his path,
     And with the storm and fire and flood
     Exacts the price of goods and blood,
     To leave him stricken, sick and sore
     Bereft of people, home and store.
     And yet how strong is man—the blow
     That falls in one place starts the flow
     Of helpfulness from everywhere,
     With open hands and saving care.
     The speedy answer to the call
     Of loss and sorrow, and from all
     Come hope and courage which uplift
     The faltering head among the drift.
     Which put new life in living when
     The fallen shall arise again.
     How strong is man when nature’s wrath
     Pours out itself upon his path!
  • Fifty Years Apart

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, March 29, 1913.
     
    
     They sit in the winter gloaming,
         And the fire burns bright between;
     One has passed seventy summers,
         And the other just seventeen.
     
     They rest in a happy silence
         As the shadows deepen fast;
     One lives in a coming future,
         And one in a long, long past.
     
     Each dreams of a rush of music,
         And a question whispered low;
     One will hear it this evening,
         One heard it long ago.
     
     Each dreams of a loving husband
         Whose brave heart is hers alone;
     For one the joy is coming,
         For one the joy has flown.
     
     Each dreams of a life of gladness
         Spent under the sunny skies;
     And both the hope and the memory
         Shine in the happy eyes.
     
     Who knows which dream is the brightest?
         And who knows which is the best?
     The sorrow and joy are mingled,
         But only the end is rest.
  • Rock Me to Sleep

    From The Detroit Times, March 28, 1913.
     
    
     Backward, turn backward, Oh time, in your flight;
     Make me a child again just for tonight!
     Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
     Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
     Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;
     Rock me to sleep, mother; rock me to sleep.
     
     Backward, flow backward, Oh tide of the years!
     I am so weary of toil and of tears;
     Toil without recompense, tears all in vain—
     Take them and give me my childhood again!
     I have grown weary of dust and decay,
     Weary of flinging my soul wealth away,
     Weary of sowing for others to reap—
     Rock me to sleep, mother; rock me to sleep.
     
     Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
     Mother, Oh mother! My heart calls for you.
     Many a summer the grass has grown green,
     Blossomed and faded, our faces between
     Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
     Long I tonight for your presence again.
     Come from the silence so long and so deep—
     Rock me to sleep, mother; rock me to sleep.
  • The Gladdest Time

    From the Rock Island Argus, March 27, 1913.
     By S. E. Kiser.
     
    
     I like it in the morning when
         The sun shines in across my bed
     And seems to kind of whisper then
         “Get up, you little sleepy head,”
     And just outside my window, where
         A limb sticks upward from a tree
     The sparrows often sit and stare
         And nod their heads and chirp at me.
     
     I like it in the evening when
         The sounds all seem so far away,
     And all the men go home again
         Who had to work so hard all day,
     For then my muvver always sings
         And dresses in her nicest gown,
     And soon we’ll hear the train that brings
         My papa back to us from town.
     
     I like it best on Sunday, when
         We don’t get up till very late,
     Because the maid’s so weary then
         And has to sleep till nearly eight,
     And after we’ve had breakfast, why,
         My papa doesn’t start away,
     But stays at home, and he and I
         Keep all the house upset all day.
  • The Hurricane

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, March 26, 1913.
     By William Cullen Bryant.
     
    
     King of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
     Blow thy breath in the burning sky!
     But I wait, with a thrill in every vein
     For the coming of the hurricane!
     
     And lo! On the wing of the heavy gales,
     Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails
     Silent and slow, and terribly strong,
     The mighty shadow is borne along,
     Like the dark eternity to come;
     While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
     Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere
     Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
     
     They darken fast; and the golden blaze
     Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
     And he sends through the shade a funeral ray—
     A glare that is neither night or day.
     A beam that touches, with hues of death,
     The clouds above and the earth beneath.
     To its covert glides the silent bird,
     While the hurricane’s distant voice is heard,
     Uplifted among the mountains round,
     And the forests hear and answer the sound.
     
     He is come! He is come! Do ye not behold
     His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
     Giant of air! We bid thee hail!
     How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
     How his huge and writhing arms are bent
     To clasp the zone of the firmament,
     And fold at length, in their dark embrace,
     From mountain to mountain the visible space.
     
     Darker—still darker! The whirlwinds bear
     The dust of the plains to the middle air;
     And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
     Of the chariot of God in the thundercloud!
     You may trace its path by the flashes that start
     From the rapid wheels where’er they dart,
     As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
     And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
     
     What roar is that? —’tis the rain that breaks
     In torrents away from the airy lakes,
     Heavily poured in the shuddering ground,
     And shedding a nameless horror round.
     Ah! Well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,
     With the very clouds! —ye are lost to my eyes.
     I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
     The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
     A whirling ocean that fills the wall
     Of the crystal heaven, and buries all,
     And I, cut off from the world remain
     Alone with the terrible hurricane.
  • The Old Home Folks

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, March 25, 1913.
     By Will Chamberlain.
     
    
     Not on the chance acquaintance,
         Nor yet on the new found friend,
     When the storms about us gather
         For comfort may we depend.
     
     If I should be permitted,
         Aside from all light jokes,
     To choose for you the truest,
         I would pick the old home folks.
     
     From them I would name a husband
         For the dimpled, would-be bride;
     A childhood mate or sweetheart,
         In whom she might confide.
     
     The old home folks are surest
         To notice if we succeed,
     And they are the first to sorrow
         With us when our hearts do bleed.
     
     So do not be quick in forsaking
         The faithfully tried for the new,
     Who may seem so apt and clever
         When the skies are soft and blue.
     
     For tho’ it is said the prophet
         Has honor except at home,
     Love blossoms there for the masses—
         The prophet afar may roam.
    
     And when in the fading twilight
         We put off life’s stern jokes,
     Those who will stand to us closest
         Will be the old home folks.
     
     While away on their sunny hilltops,
         By Elysian breezes fanned,
     God’s own home folks will greet us
         With a smile and outstretched hand.