From The Birmingham Age Herald, October 11, 1913.
“We’ll worry along, somehow,”
He said when misfortunes came,
And the courage that welled from his dauntless heart
Fed hope’s undying flame.
“We’ll worry along, somehow,”
His face still wore a smile,
Though the road that he traveled was strewn with thorns
For many a weary mile.
From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 28, 1913.
Beyond the toiling and the dreaming,
The heartache and the rue,
The little minds of mortals scheming
Some puny task to do;
Beyond this world of vain endeavor,
With all its fretful bars,
Our ransomed souls shall roam forever
In fields sown thick with stars.
From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 21, 1913.
Sad is the fate of the toiler
Who has little love for his work,
If he sits in the seats of the mighty,
Or slaves for the hire of a clerk.
For the men who are moving the world on
And making its dreams come true
Are those who are putting their hearts in
The work they are called on to do.
From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 18, 1913. By Bret Harte.
“I was with Grant,” the stranger said;
Said the farmer, “Say no more,
But rest thee here at my cottage porch,
For thy feet are weary and sore.”
“I was with Grant,” the stranger said;
Said the farmer, “Say no more,
I prithee sit at my frugal board,
And eat of my humble store.
“How fares my boy—my soldier boy,
Of the old Ninth army corps?
I warrant he bore him gallantly
In the smoke and the battle roar!”
“I know him not,” said the aged man,
“And as I remarked before,
I was with Grant—.” “Nay, nay, I know,”
Said the farmer, “Say no more;
“He fell in battle? I see, alas!
Thou’dst smooth these tidings o’er—
Nay, speak the truth, whatever it be,
Though it rend my bosom’s core.
“How fell he—with his face to the foe,
Upholding the flag he bore?
Oh, say not that my boy disgraced
The uniform that he wore!”
“I cannot tell,” said the aged man,
“And should have remarked before,
That I was with Grant—in Illinois—
Some three years before the war.”
Then the farmer spake him never a word,
But beat with his fist full sore,
That aged man, who had worked for Grant,
Some three years before the war.
From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 17, 1913. By Rudyard Kipling.
You may talk o’ gin an’ beer
When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But if it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.
Now in India’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ’er majesty the queen,
Of all them black faced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
He was “Din! Din! Din!
You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!
Hi! slippy hitherao
Water, get it! Panee lao,
You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din!”
The uniform ’e wore
Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind,
For a twisty piece o’ rag
An’ a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment ’e could find.
When the sweatin’ troop train lay
In a sidin’ through the day,
Where the ’eat would make yer bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,
We shouted ‘Harry By!’
Till our throats were bricky dry,
Then we wopped ’im ’cause ’e couldn’t serve us all.
It was “Din! Din! Din!
You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been?
You put some juldee in it,
Or I’ll marrow you this minute
If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!”
’E would dot an’ carry one
Till the longest day was done;
An’ ’e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.
If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin’ nut,
’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear,
With ’is mussick on ’is back,
’E would skip with our attack,
An’ watch us till the bugles made “Retire.”
An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide
’E was white, clear white, inside
When he went to tend the wounded under fire!
It was “Din! Din! Din!
With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.
When the cartridges ran out,
You’d ‘ear the front files shout:
Hi! ammunition mules an’ Gunga Din!”
I shan’t forget the night
When I dropped be’ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt plate should ’a’ been.
I was chokin’ mad with thirst,
An’ the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.
’E lifted up my ’ead,
An’ he plugged me where I bled,
An’ ’e guv me ’arf a pint o’ water green.
It was crawlin’ an’ it stunk,
But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,
I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.
It was “Din! Din! Din!
‘Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ’is spleen;
‘E’s chawin’ up the ground an’ ’e’s kickin’ all around;
For Gawd’s sake, git the water, Gunga Din!”
’E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.
’E put me safe inside,
An’ just before ’e died:
“I ’ope you liked your drink,” sez Gunga Din.
So I’ll meet ’im later on
In the place where ’e is gone,
Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;
’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals
Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,
An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I’ve belted you an’ flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 13, 1913. By Eugene Field.
The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool—
Of red wing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool;
It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill,
And I hear the thrush’s evening song and the robin’s morning trill,
So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know
Where the sassafras and snakeroot and checkerberries grow.
What has become of Ezra Marsh, who lived on Baker’s Hill?
And what’s become of Noble Pratt, whose father kept the mill?
And what’s become of Lizzie Crum and Anastasia Snell,
And of Roxie Root, who ‘tended school in Boston for a spell?
They are the boys and they are the girls who shared my youthful play—
They do not answer to my call! My playmates—where are they?
What has become of Levi and his little brother Joe,
Who lived next door to where we lived some forty years ago?
I’d like to see the Newton boys and Quincy Adams Brown,
And Hepsy Hall and Ella Cowles, who spelled the whole school down!
And Gracie Smith, the Cutler boys, Leander Snow and all,
Who I am sure would answer could they only hear my call!
I’d like to see Bill Warner and the Conkey boys again,
And talk about the times we used to wish that we were men!
And one—I shall not name her—could I see her gentle face
And hear her girlish treble in this distant, lonely place!
The flowers and hopes of springtime—they perished long ago,
And the garden where they blossomed is white with winter snow.
O cottage ‘neath the maples, have you seen those girls and boys
That but a little while ago made, Oh! such pleasant noise?
O trees, and hills, and brooks, and lanes, and meadows, do you know
Where I shall find my little friends of forty years ago?
You see I’m old and weary, and I’ve traveled long and far;
I am looking for my playmates—I wonder where they are?
From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 10, 1913. By Eugene Field.
Did you ever hear the wind go “Yooooo?”
’Tis a pitiful sound to hear!
It seems to thrill you through and through
With a strange and speechless fear.
’Tis the voice of the night that broods outside
When folk should be asleep,
And many and many’s the time I’ve cried
To the darkness brooding far and wide
Over the land and the deep;
“Whom do you want, O lonely night
That you wail the long hours through?”
And the night would say in its ghostly way:
Yoooooo!
Yoooooo!
Yoooooo!
My mother told me long ago (when I was a little lad)
That when the night went wailing so,
Somebody had been bad;
And then, when I was snug in bed,
Whither I had been sent,
With the blankets pulled up round my head
I’d think of what my mother said
And wonder what boy she meant!
And “Who’s been bad today?” I’d ask
Of the wind that hoarsely blew,
And the voice would say in a meaningful way:
Yoooooo!
Yoooooo!
Yoooooo!
That this was true I must allow,
You’ll not believe it, though!
Yes, though I’m quite a model now
I was not always so,
And if you doubt what things I say,
Suppose you make the test;
Suppose, when you’ve been bad some day
And up to bed are sent away from mother and the rest—
Suppose you ask, “Who has been bad?”
And then you’ll hear what’s true:
For the wind will moan in its ruefullest tone:
Yoooooo!
Yoooooo!
Yoooooo!
From The Birmingham Age-Herald, September 5, 1913. By Albert Pike.
Where the rocks are gray and the shore is steep,
And the waters below look dark and deep,
Where the rugged pine, in its lonely pride
Leans gloomily over the murky tide,
Where the reeds and rushes are long and rank
And the weeds grow thick on the winding bank,
Where the shadow is heavy the whole day through,
There lies at its moorings the old canoe.
The useless paddles are idly dropped,
Like a sea bird’s wings that the storms had lopped,
And crossed o’er the railings one o’er one,
Like the folded hands when the work is done;
While busily back and forth between
The spider stretches his silvery screen,
And the solemn owl, with his dull “too-hoo,”
Settles down on the side of the old canoe.
The stern, half sunk in the slimy wave
Rots slowly away in its living grave,
And the green moss creeps o’er its dull decay
Hiding its moldering dust away
Like the hand that plants o’er the tomb a flower
Or the ivy that mantles the falling tower,
While many a blossom of loveliest hue
Springs up o’er the stern of the old canoe.
The currentless waters are dead and still,
But the light wind plays with the boat at will,
And lazily in and out again
It floats the length of the rusty chain
Like the weary march of the hands of time
That meet and part at the noontide chime,
And the shore is kissed at each turning anew
By the dripping bow of the old canoe.
Oh, many a time, with a careless hand
I have pushed it away from the pebbly strand,
And paddled it down where the stream runs quick
Where the whirls are wide and the eddies thick,
And laughed as I leaned o’er the rocking side
And looked below in the broken tide
The see that the faces and boats were two,
That were mirrored back from the old canoe.
But now, as I lean o’er the crumbling side,
And look below in the broken tide,
The face that I see there is graver grown,
And the laugh that I hear has a sobered tone,
And the hanks that lent to the light skiff wings
Have grown familiar with sterner things.
But I love to think of the hours that sped
As I rocked where the whirls their white spray shed,
Ere the blossoms waved, or the green grass grew
O’er the moldering stern of the old canoe.
From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 4, 1913.
The call to school makes Willie sad,
He thinks about the fun he’s had,
Those leafy coverts cool and dim,
The stream in which he used to swim,
The country lanes that lured his feet
When idle days made life so sweet.
And then a shadow glooms his face.
No more he’ll leap and run and race
As free as any bird of air,
His heart a stranger to all care.
Now readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic
Must be his lot, his teacher’s quick
And roving eye his nemesis—
Could any fate be worse than this?
From The Birmingham Age Herald, September 2, 1913. By Francis Mahoney.
With deep affection,
And recollection,
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder
Where’er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.
I’ve heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in
Cathedral shrine,
While at a glib rate
Brass tongues would vibrate—
But all their music
Spoke naught like thine;
For memory, dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of the belfry knelling
Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.
I’ve heard bells tolling
Old Adrian’s Mole in,
Their thunder rolling
From the Vatican,
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of Notre Dame;
But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter
Flings o’er the Tiber,
Pealing solemnly—
O the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.
There’s a bell in Moscow,
While on the tower and kiosk O
In Saint Sophia
The Turkman gets,
And loud in air
Calls men to prayer
From tapering summits
Of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom
I freely grant them;
But there’s an anthem
More dear to me—
’Tis the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.