Tag: Berton Braley

From The Tacoma Times, November 8, 1913. By Berton Braley.

“All is well”—the word is said
    By the blind men to the blind,
And the Tory nods his head
    Quite contented in his mind;

“All is well”—men starve and die
    In the midst of plenty’s store,
Babies weep and mothers cry,
    Famine lingers at the door,

Children toil in roaring mills,
    Robbed of all their hours of play,
Doing work that stunts and kills—
    “All is well,” the Tories cry.

Women take the wage of shame,
    Driven by the scourge of want;
Still the slogan is the same,
    “All is well,” resounds the vaunt.

Law is trampled under foot,
    Right is sunken in the mire
And the thug, the vicious brute,
    Beats and slugs and kills—for hire.

Men who dare to speak the truth
    Pace within a prison cell;
Power rules that knows no ruth,
    Yet men murmur, “All is well!”

Fetid street and filthy slum—
    Toil that makes men’s lives a hell,
Want and woe and vice and rum—
    Let’s be thankful “All is well!”

From The Tacoma Times, November 1, 1913. By Berton Braley.

Where’s the road to happiness,
    Where’s the joyous way?
Where’s the path to Arcady
    Ever blithe as May?
Here be many roads to take,
    Wisdom, there, ahoy!
What’s the proper turn to make
    For the road of joy?

“Take whatever road is straight,
    Carol as you go,
Help a comrade bear his pack
    If it bends him low,
Take your chances as they come,
    Famine days or fat,
If Dame Fortune treat you ill
    Dare to laugh at that!”

What’s the road to Happiness?
    How then shall we make it?
“Tisn’t just the way you TAKE,
    But the WAY you take it!”

From The Tacoma Times, October 30, 1913. By Berton Braley.

We fellows who fool with a pencil or pen
May serve in a measure the leisure of men,
May dream little dreams which we draw or we write,
To give them a moment or hour of delight;
But somehow, it’s little and useless we feel
Compared to the builders in stone and in steel.

We muddle around with our paints or our ink
And talk about Art and the things that we think,
And we fancy ourselves and the work that we do
Which gladdens the eye for a moment or two,
And if a few people should mention our name
We think we are figures of glory and fame!

Our visions are nothing but visions—that’s all,
But the dreams of the builders are built in a wall;
They are hammered in steel, they are mortared in stone,
In tower and bridge and in buttress they’re shown,
Say, what are we singers and painter folk worth
Compared to the builders who conquer the earth!

From The Tacoma Times, October 28, 1913. By Berton Braley.

Bill’s gone to college and I’m glad that he’s beginning it;
    He’s wanted to be going for a long, long spell
For life’s a lively struggle and in order to be winning it
    A fellow’s education must be learned right well;
Bill’s gone to college and I’m tickled he is going there.
    I didn’t have the chances which have come to him,
And Bill is smart as blazes and he’ll surely make a showing there;
    He’s full of big ambitions to the very brim!

Bill’s gone to college—but not a swell and fancy one
    With Greek and Latin classics and a lot like that,
Bill’s gone to college, but not a nice Miss Nancy one
    Where they’d feed him up on “culchah” in a real swell frat;
Bill’s college courses are not favored in society,
    They won’t turn him weary of the good brown loam,
They’ll mold of him a farmer of the up-to-date variety,
    Who’ll make the farm a hummer when he gets back home!

Bill’s gone to college, a college educational,
    To learn the farming business as a man should do,
To get a sort of culture that is sensible and rational
    And not a classic “polish” and a swelled head, too;
Bill’s gone to college—but the country isn’t losing him
    He isn’t going to listen to the city’s charm,
The glamor of the city streets would scarcely be a song to him;
    Bill’s gone to college—where he’ll learn to farm!

From The Tacoma Times, October 14, 1913. By Berton Braley.

Thank the Lord I have my work!—
    In the mighty world of toil
I can share the weight and irk
    Of the labor and the moil;
I’m a worker, not a drone;
Sweat and weariness I’ve known,
Through the goodly years I’ve been
Toiling with my fellow men,
Peddler, poet, boss and clerk—
Thank the Lord I have my work!

Thank the Lord I have my work
    Ever near to serve my turn,
Refuge from the cares that lurk
    And the woes that sear and burn;
Fate may wear her grimmest mask,
Love be lost—I have my task;
Life is hard?—I’ll see it through;
There is work for me to do;
Toil shall light the dreary murk;
Thank the Lord I have my work!

From The Tacoma Times, October 6, 1913. By Berton Braley.

She firmly declared that the man she should marry
    Must wholly conform to a certain ideal.
He mustn’t be homely, like Tom, Dick and Harry,
    But handsome and noble, with muscles like steel;
He must have an intellect masterly, splendid,
    Ambition and power and honor and fame,
With knowledge and humor delightfully blended—
    And other requirements too many to name.

She married a chap who was dull as you find ‘em,
    And homely besides, as an unpainted fence;
The wise ones had long ago left him behind ‘em;
    His lack of ambition was something intense;
His humor was minus and, as for his knowledge,
    He hadn’t enough to come in when it rains;
His father had wanted to send him to college,
    But found—to his grief—that he hadn’t the brains.

Yet she doesn’t think she has been inconsistent;
    She truly believes he is all that she thought;
She clothes him with charms that are quite non-existent
    And dreams him the wonderful man that she sought;
We notice her choice and we chuckle and chortle
    And wonder how such a poor dub could appeal,
But she takes that commonplace, every-day mortal
    And firmly believes she has found her ideal!