Newspaper History

Category: The Birmingham Age-Herald

  • Friends

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, July 25, 1915. By Allen Griffin Johnson.

    Old friend, we’ve journeyed far and wide.
        O’er rugged hills and hollows;
    With yearning hearts, at eventide,
        We’ve watched the homing swallows;
    We’ve known that bitter grief and dole
        That cry unheard to heaven,
    Like some poor, hell-bound, tortured soul,
        Condemned and unforgiven.

    Through Sin’s fair vale, near Sorrow’s mart,
        We’ve wandered free and joyous,
    Where, hidden by the Tempter’s art,
        Death waited to destroy us;
    We’ve drunk life’s bitter and its sweet,
        Have seen our castles tumbled
    In ruins at our weary feet,
        Yet smiled, nor even grumbled.

    Our blood has sanguined many a field,
        Though courage ne’er departed,
    Nor foeman forced us yet to yield,
        Nor either grown faint hearted;
    We’ve known the peace of eventide,
        When day’s hard fight had ended,
    And sunset’s crimson glory died,
        As earth and sky were blended.

    Then, too, the bliss of sweet repose,
        When real cares and seeming;
    Depart, and life’s stream gently flows
        To slumber’s land of Dreaming;
    We’ve felt the fury of the blasts,
        And known the calm succeeding,
    Far sweeter for the storm that’s past—
        A lesson worth the heeding.

    We’ve known the warmth of Summer’s sun,
        The blight of Winter’s weather,
    And when, at last, our race is run,
        We’ll leave the track—together;
    Aye, hand and hand, as in the past,
        We’ll journey o’er the river;
    Together e’en unto the last—
        Friends now and friends forever.

  • The Chambered Nautilus

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, July 13, 1915. By Oliver Wendell Holmes.

    This is the ship of pearl which, poets feign,
    Sails the unshadowed main,
    The venturesome bark that flings
    On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
    In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
    And coral reefs lie bare,
    Where the cold sea maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

    Its web of living gauze no more unfurl;
    Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
    And every chamber cell
    Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
    As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
    Before thee lies revealed,
    Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

    Year after year beheld the silent toil
    That spread its lustrous coil;
    Still, as the spiral grew,
    He left the past year’s dwelling archway through,
    Built up its idle door,
    Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

    Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
    Child of the wandering sea,
    Cast from her lap, forlorn!
    From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
    Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
    While on mine ear it rings,
    Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings—

    Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
    As the swift seasons roll!
    Leave thy low-vaulted past!
    Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
    Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
    Till thou at length art free,
    Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

  • Jim and Joe

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, July 11, 1915.

    Jim and Joe were boys together,
        Knew the same swift forest streams,
    Roamed the same fair fields and heather
        In the Land of Hope-filled Dreams.

    Jim was filled with strange ambition,
        Wealth he’d wanted from the start;
    Different was Joe’s condition—
        He wanted but a tender heart.

    Two fair sisters soon they married—
        All seemed happy for a while—
    But not long at home Jim tarried
        Ere he sought Wealth’s fickle smile.

    Joe but labored through the morning,
        Often, too, into the night;
    For his wage, the smile adorning
        Wife’s and baby’s faces bright.

    Jim grew rich, and with his power
        O’er his fellows held a sway,
    But, with every passing hour
        Love was stealing swift away.

    Soon the maid whom Jim had married
        Bowed her head and smiled the less;
    Bravely, though, her cross she carried,
        Speaking still of “Jim’s success.”

    Wealth was theirs, all of its treasure
        Theirs to gloat o’er every day;
    Yet they’d lost in greater measure—
        Wealth had driven love away.

    Joe met many sad reverses.
        Unto him was fortune vile;
    Yet he never indulged in curses,
        Rather did he seem to smile.

    Though he hoped for fortune later,
        With a faith in God above,
    He had found a treasure greater
        In the wealth of Mary’s love.

    Though success and wealth we’re after,
        Oft we’re losers in the end—
    Love makes best its own sweet laughter,
        Hardship is its truest friend.

  • Why Not?

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, July 5, 1915.

    A tramp going across a field was accosted by the owner.
    “You’ll have to get out of here.”
    “Why?”
    “Because it’s posted.”
    “Who posted it?”
    “I did.”
    “What right have you to post it?”
    “Because it’s mine.”
    “Where did you get it?”
    “I inherited it from my father.”
    “Well, where did he get it?”
    “He inherited it from his father.”
    “Hm! Where did he get it?”
    “He inherited it from his father.”
    “Um hm! And where did he get it?”
    “He fought for it.”
    The tramp took off his coat.
    “Well,” he said, “I’ll fight you for it.”

  • A First Class Substitute

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, June 27, 1915.

    Now, riches don’t make happiness,
        A very ancient saw;
    And yet, a maid who’s in distress
        Quite often goes to law
    And asks enormous damages
        To heal a broken heart,
    And when her lawyer makes his pleas
        The jury takes her part,
    So that, in just a little while,
        Her breach of promise suit
    Extracts the coin to live in style
        From one who proved a “brute.”
    And while it mayn’t be happiness
        That makes her features glow,
    Whate’er it is, it doth express
        A joyous mood, I know.

  • The Master of His Fate

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, June 26, 1915.

    He met each day serenely,
        Without a trace of care;
    The weather seemed to suit him,
        If rainy ’twas or fair.

    He ne’er was heard complaining
        That fate had used him wrong;
    The hills around re-echoed
        The music of his song.

    His ways were rough and ready,
        His clothes were common, too;
    But he would soon be wealthy,
        As everybody knew.

    And on his mighty shoulders
        Life’s burdens lightly lay;
    He owned a small repair shop
        Upon a broad highway

    Where motor cars disabled
        Were mended in a trice,
    And, free from competition
        He charged a fancy price.

  • A Slave of the City

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, June 23, 1915.

    His heart dwells in fair country lanes,
        The pleasant rural places,
    Where days go by as in a dream
        And no one ever races
    In maddened quest of fame and wealth,
        Unmoved by love or pity,
    And tramples weaker brothers down,
        As folks do in the city.

    His heart dwells in the peaceful realm
        Of meadow, hill and dale,
    Where smoky billows never stain
        The cloud-ships as they sail,
    And where there’s much that’s more worth while
        Than worldly place and power,
    And something of God’s plan is taught
        By every wayside flower.

  • Gaining by Giving

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, May 23, 1915.

    You who’re healthy, you who’re wealthy, you are lucky, I’ll agree,
    But I wonder if you’re happy as you’d really like to be.
    Nay, I know, if you are selfish, with a selfish aim and end,
    You’re less happy than the beggar who is sharing with a friend.

    All the money you have hidden on your little, private shelf
    Will procure you little joy, if it’s only for yourself.
    For the moral law is written on each real, human heart
    That our happiness is measured by the shared—not hoarded part.

    Joy’s strange, and though we seek it, yet we seldom understand
    Why it smilingly eludes us as we grasp with selfish hand.
    But we’re yet to learn, most of us, that it is as God intends—
    That our joy grows the greater as we give it to our friends.

    For, as sure as you are living, and as sure as you will die,
    Joy never was intended on some hidden shelf to lie.
    And you’ll never know the joy that is lasting, deep and true
    ‘Till you’ve shared, in love with others, that which God has given you.

  • A Confederate Veteran’s Dream

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, May 19, 1915. By Lance Hendrix.

    He marches away in his slumbers,
        With a gay, romantic heart,
    And thinks of the coming battles
        In which he will soon take part.
    He thinks of a mother he’s leaving,
        And a sister so bonny and gay,
    But his thoughts are most of another,
        His beautiful, dark-eyed May.

    Again he’s with Lee in Virginia,
        Where the Rappahannock flows,
    And forming in line of battle
        To fight the northern foes.
    His heart is again rent with passion,
        His mind is fiery with hate;
    He rushes into the battle,
        Leaving his safety to fate.

    He sees the flag of the southland
        Flaunt proudly in the breeze,
    And hears the shouts of the soldiers
        Ringing in all the trees.
    He sees the opposing enemy
        Retire from the field in defeat,
    And a thrill runs through his body
        From his head to the sole of his feet.

    The scene is removed in a moment
        To another battle field,
    Where the fight has raged for hours,
        And neither side will yield.
    Again the vision takes him
        To a field that’s farther away,
    Where the men in blue are victorious,
        And slowly retreat the gray.

    Very true and vivid
        Do all those battles seem.
    But, alas! he wakes to find
        That he’s only had a dream.
    A little maid before him,
        Her head a mass of gold,
    Whispers softly, “Grandfather dear,
        Your tea is getting cold.”

  • War Risks

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, May 5, 1915. By C. Fox Smith.

    “Let’s go aft”… and out she slides,
    Pitching when she meets the tides…
    She for whom our cruisers keep
    Lordly vigil in the deep…
    Sink or swim, lads, war or no,
    Let the poor old hooker go.

    Soon, hull down, will England’s shore,
    Smudged and faint, be seen no more;
    Soon the following gulls return
    Where the friendly dock-lights burn…
    Soon the cold stars, climbing high,
    March across the empty sky…
    Empty seas beyond her bow,
    (Lord, she’s on her lonesome now.)

    When the white fog, stooping low,
    Folds in darkness friend and foe…
    When the fast great liners creep
    Veiled and silent through the deep…
    When the hostile searchlight’s eye
    Sweeps across the midnight sky,
    Lord of light and darkness, then,
    Stretch Thy wing o’er merchantmen!

    When the waters known of old
    Death in dreadful shape may hold…
    When the mine’s black treachery
    Secret walks the insulted sea…
    (Lest the people wait in vain
    For their cattle and their grain),
    Since thy name is mercy, then,
    Lord, be kind to merchantmen!