Newspaper History

Category: The Sun

  • A Prayer

    From The Sun, August 11, 1914. By Edward S. Van Zile.

    God of my Fathers, grant me aid
        That I may rout my countless foes!
    By Thee were guns and cannons made.
        From Thee the joy of battle flows.

    O God, who gave me might and power,
        Thou knowest that my heart is pure.
    Be with me in this awful hour
        That I and mine may still endure.

    Thou are the God who loveth war,
        And famine, rapine, blood and death;
    I pray Thee stand beside me, for
        Thou knowest what my spirit saith.

    The soul of me is linked with Thine
        To bid the blood of heroes flow.
    The death we grant them is divine,
        And in Thy name I bid them go.

    God of my Fathers, still be kind
        To them who raise Thy banner high,
    While Thou and I together find
        The surest way for them to die.

    They do my bidding. God, look down
        And bless the sword that I have drawn.
    My blight shall fall on field and town,
        And thousands shall not see the dawn.

    To Thee, O God, I give all praise
        That Thou hast made my hand so strong;
    That now, as in my father’s days,
        The King and Thee can do no wrong.

  • The Other Alliance

    From The Sun, August 7, 1914. By McLandburgh Wilson.

    Germans and Austrians turn on the world,
        Sounding their battle alarms;
    English, French, Russians and Serbs are all hurled
        Crushing the others in arms.
    Still is a greater alliance that sweeps
        Leading forever the van;
    One that includes every woman who weeps,
        One that includes every man.

    Soldiers shall rot in the land of the foe;
        Widows shall sorrow forlorn;
    Babes shall come into a world full of woe
        Orphaned before they are born.
    This is the triple alliance that bears
        Brunt of the carnage so wild;
    Greatest, most ancient of all earth’s affairs,
        Father and mother and child.

  • The Drum

    From The Sun, August 2, 1914. By McLandburgh Wilson.

    This earth is as a mighty drum
        Upon which beat the strokes of Fate,
    While countermarching go and come
        The forces which decide our state.

    Advance! and Science, Letters, Art
        Press forward, gaining every field;
    Their banners conquer every heart
        And unknown foes before them yield.

    Retreat! and dark barbaric hordes
        Enwrap all learning in a pall,
    And Progress sinks beneath their swords
        As Greece and Rome were fain to fall.

    Thus victory with each is cast,
        The endless battle never won,
    Until upon the Drum at last
        Shall beat the Dirge and all be done.

  • In the “Zoo”

    From The Sun, July 12, 1914. By George T. Marsh.

    Exiles, they tread their narrow bounds
        Behind the iron bars.
    Where’er they turn the hand of man
        Their straining vision mars,
    Save only when at night they gaze
        Upon the friendly stars.

    See! There a golden eagle broods
        With glazed, unseeing eyes
    That never more will sweep the snows
        Where blue Sierras rise;
    And there, sick for his native hills,
        A sullen panther lies.

    What dreams of silent polar nights
        Disturb the white bear’s sleep?
    Roams he once more unfettered where
        Eternal ice flows sweep?
    What memories of the jungle’s ways
        Does that gaunt tiger keep?

    Such wistful eyes the hartebeest turn
        Beyond their cramped domain.
    They seem to see the yellowing leagues
        Of wind swept veldt again.
    And look, a springbok lifts his head
        As though he smelled the plain.

    Exiles, they tread their narrow bounds
        Behind the iron bars.
    For thus the ruthless hand of man
        Each God-made creature mars.
    But oh, what hungry eyes they raise
        Up to the friendly stars!

  • The Call of the Wild

    From The Sun, July 5, 1914.

    I know a place where the fern is deep
        And the giant fir waves high,
    And a rocky ledge hangs dark and steep,
        And a laughing brook leaps by.
    And it’s there to be with a soul that’s free
        From the street’s discordant jar,
    With a blanket spread on a cedar bed,
        And the voice of the world afar.

    I know of a pool in a leafy dell
        That the wary trout love best,
    And a timid trail to the chaparral
        Where the red deer lie at rest.
    A night bird’s call when the shadows fall
        And a cougar’s eerie cry,
    A silence deep, and a dreamless sleep
        Under the open sky.

  • The Bloodless Sportsman

    From The Sun, June 28, 1914. By Henry Kelman.

    I go a-gunning, but take no gun;
        I fish without a pole;
    And I bag good game and catch such fish
        As suit a sportsman’s soul.

    For the choicest game that the forest holds,
        And the best fish of the brook
    Are never brought down by a rifle shot,
        And are never caught with a hook.

    I bob for fish by the forest brook,
        I hunt for game in the trees.
    For bigger birds than wing the air
        Or fish than swim the seas.

    A rodless Walton of the brooks,
        A bloodless sportsman I—
    I hunt for the thoughts that throng the woods,
        The dreams that haunt the sky.

    The woods were made for the hunters of dreams,
        The brooks for the fishers of song;
    To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
        The streams and the woods belong.

    There are thoughts that moan from the soul of the pine,
        And thoughts in a flower bell curled;
    And the thoughts that are blown with the scent of the fern
        Are as new and as old as the world.

  • A Militant

    From The Sun, June 14, 1914. By W. J. Lampton.

    She was an elder woman and she came
    Into my office with no shrink of shame.
    But with a manner most aggressively
    As though she owned the whole darn place and me.
    “Good morning, Ma’am,” I said in my best way,
    “What is there I can do for you today?”
    She held me with her eagle eye
    Nor passed my imperfections by.
    “Breathes there the man with soul so dead
    Who never to himself hath said:
    ‘Women shall vote’?” ’Twas thus she spoke,
    And guileless I, considering it a joke,
    Responded, “Well, really now, I cannot say
    But souls don’t die, Ma’am, down our way.”
    Then burned her swarthy cheek like fire
    And shook her very frame for ire—
    “Strike, if you will, this old gray head,
    But share your votes with us,” she said.
    Regardless of what might occur,
    I braced myself and answered her:
    “Indeed, I would most gladly share
    My vote with you, O lady fair,
    But truly now, it can’t be done,
    Because you see I have but one,
    And that the law, however snide,
    Will not allow me to divide.”
    Her brow was sad, her eye, beneath,
    Flashed like a falchion from its sheath:
    “When freedom, from her mountain height,
    Unfurls her banner to the air,
    She’ll split the azure robe of night
    And nail the votes of women there,”
    The lady said, and I replied
    With this faint query on the side:
    “I hate to ask you so, it hurts,
    But say, will Freedom wear slashed skirts?”
    She answered with a look of rage
    Which hid the ashen hue of age:
    “Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day
    When the women shall meet thee in battle array.”
    “But Madam,” I said, “why speak to me thus?
    My name isn’t Lochiel. I don’t know the cuss.”
    The flash of her dark, threatening eyes,
    Forerunning thunder, took my size:
    “When Freedom’s name is understood,
    You’ll not delight the wise and good;
    You dare not set the women free
    And give them law’s equality.
    Farewell, you horrid wretch; I can
    Call you by no worse name than Man.”
    She turned to go and went so fast
    I could not stay her as she passed;
    And yet I would have done so, for
    I am a peaceful bachelor
    Who hates the very thought of war.
    And sure, as far as I’m concerned,
    They may have suffrage and be derned.

  • Catclaw and Cactus

    From The Sun, May 17, 1914.

    Catclaw and cactus are thick in the pasture, that sun blistered section of rocks and dry grass;
    The fat little prairie dogs sit by their burrows and rasp out shrill warnings as we gallop past.
    Up in the blue sky the buzzards are soaring; a startled jackrabbit, with fear in his breast,
    Decamps like a streak through the brush scattered wildly—the fauna and flora that mark the great West.

    Hurrah for the feel of a battered stock saddle—the slapping of brush against weather worn chaps;
    The smell of a wet horse—the sound of his hoofbeats—the jingle of spurs and the creaking of straps!
    Your cities seem nothing but dens of corruption, for here steady breezes blow sweet without rest.
    Just give me a horse and some square miles of pasture, and leave me at peace far out here in the West.

  • The Summer Rain

    From The Sun, May 3, 1914. By Ninette M. Lowater.

    I hear the dancing on the roof, the fairy footed rain!
    I hear her singing in the eaves, and tapping at the pane;
    I hear her calling to the flowers and to the creeping grass,
    And they come laughing up to greet her footsteps as they pass.

    She brings the promise of the year, of food for hungry herds,
    Shelter and food for wildwood things, and for the singing birds;
    And food for man, the dainty fruits, the yellow wheat and corn,
    And all the largesse of the earth are of her bounty born.

    Sing high and sweet, O summer rain, with verdure crown the hills,
    Fill to the brim our wells and springs, fill all the little rills;
    Earth laughs with joy to see you spread your banners in the sky,
    For in the bounteous gifts you bring our wealth and welfare lie.

  • Johnny Sands

    From The Sun, April 19, 1914.

    A man whose name was Johnny Sands
        Had married Betty Hague;
    And though she brought him gold and lands,
        She proved a terrible plague—
    For, oh, she was a scolding wife,
        Full of caprice and whim—
    He said that he was tired of life,
        And she was tired of him.

    Says he, “Then I will drown myself—
        The river runs below.”
    Says she, “Pray do, you silly elf—
        I wished it long ago.”
    Says he, “Upon the brink I’ll stand.
        Do you run down the hill
    And push me in with all your might.”
        Says she, “My love, I will.”

    “For fear that I should courage lack
        And try to save my life,
    Pray tie my hands behind my back.”
        “I will,” replied his wife.
    She tied them fast, as you may think,
        And when securely done,
    “Now stand,” she says, “upon the brink,
        While I prepare to run.”

    All down the hill his loving bride
        Now ran with all her force
    To push him in—he stepped aside,
        And she fell in of course.
    Now splashing, dashing like a fish—
        “Oh save me, Johnny Sands!”
    “I can’t, my dear, though much I wish,
        For you have tied my hands!”