Tag: Roy K. Moulton

From The Topeka State Journal, June 8, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

Why did those old Egyptian kings
Build pyramids and other things?
Why did they proudly carve or paint
An obelisk with figures quaint?
Why did some Roman monarch raise
A circus in those good old days?
Or keep a poet under hire
To sound a complimentary lyre?
Why did old Caesar late at night
Sit up describing every fight?
Or Alexander make that bluff
And say, “The world’s not big enough?”
To us who view the modern game
And see how wealth is wrung from fame,
The answer need not cause surprise:
It always pays to advertise.

From The Topeka State Journal, June 3, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

Quite soon the world must hesitate
And listen to the graduate
    And soak in good advice
That’s given by the wise young men
And women o’er and o’er again
    Without the slightest price.

They’ve got a lot of it to give.
They’ll tell the whole world how to live
    And how to win the strife.
They’ll tell the old folk as of yore,
In fancy and high-sounding lore
    How to succeed in life.

It’s safe to say they will solve all
Of Wilson’s problems, great and small,
    And questions of the day.
The world, of course, will be polite
And listen on commencement night
    And then go on its way.

From The Topeka State Journal, April 6, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

“Don’t marry scrubs,” says Mr. Taft, and makes a subtle pause,
So all the rapt and listening maids can ripple their applause.
Indeed, ’tis sage and sound advice, for once a wedded wife,
A girl who’s married to a scrub will lead an awful life.
A scrub will loaf, a scrub will booze, he’ll gamble if it please him;
But how, pray tell us, is a girl to know one when she sees him?
A chesty fellow comes along, with manners like John Drew;
A knitted tie and green silk socks and eyes of lovely blue.
He looks the goods from heel to hair—a regular high life swell;
He might well be a Claude Melnotte, but how’s a girl to tell?
It means an awful lot to her, for if she is mistaken
She’ll be the one to suffer when he can’t bring home the bacon.
Another knock-kneed, seedy guy, who drives a grocery cart
May have beneath his battered vest a fourteen-karat heart.

From The Topeka State Journal, March 9, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

She ransacked every novel
    And the dictionary, too,
But nothing ever printed
    For her baby’s name would do;
She hunted appellations
    From the present and the past,
And this is what she named him
    When they christened him at last:

Julian Harold Egbert
    Ulysses Victor Paul
Algernon Marcus Cecil
    Sylvester George McFall.
But after all the trouble
    She’d taken for his sake,
His father called him Fatty,
    And his schoolmates called him Jake.

From The Topeka State Journal, January 27, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

I remember way back in ’84,
The folks was madder’n ever before,
When they noticed first the increased expense,
And they have been hollerin’ ever sence.
They holler till they’re sick and sore and lame,
But they keep on payin’ just the same.
They holler till they’re sick and sore and shout
There ain’t one thing they will do without.
For every family in this broad land
Is as good as the next one. Understand?
They caterwaller and they wipe their eyes,
But they don’t seem willing to economize.
When one feller gits some jimcrack new,
The next feller’s got to have one, too.
They all keep digging down in their jeans
And tryin’ to live beyond their means.
If this goes on to the end of time,
The cost of living is going to climb,
Fer when you put on new-fangled frills,
You surely have got to pay the bills.

From The Topeka State Journal, December 18, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

He seeks no rabbits. They are too tame.
He’s going out for bigger game,
A thing he has wished to do
E’er since he was a barefoot boy.
He’s spent most all his hard earned dough,
More than he could afford to blow
Because he wants to go in style
And do the thing up simply right.
There’s nothing that he hasn’t bought
By way of fixin’ that he ought.
He’s all fussed up in hunting clothes
Of loud design and out of sight.
A week goes by. They get no word,
And start to wonder what’s occurred.
Until one day a telegram
Fills them with nervous dread and fear.
’Tis short but very eloquent
And everyone knows what is meant:
“Mistaken for a deer.”

From The Topeka State Journal, November 30, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

Got a letter yesterday
    From my cousin Jim.
Guess it’s been almost a year
    Since I’ve heard from him.
Says he hopes I’m prosperin’,
    For he’s fond of me;
Hopes I’ll drop the old-time grudge
    An’ be friends you see.
Takes occasion to remark,
    Incidental like,
New kid at this house is named
    In my honor, Ike.

Uncle Pete has written me,
    Quite a letter, too;
Hopes my health is on the gain,
    Then hands me a few
Hot ones on his love for me;
    Says it is intense,
Like to see me if he could,
    Barrin’ the expense.
To’ard the close he manages
    To slip in a line
That the suit I gin him once
    Lasted three years, fine.

Cousin Hank and Brother Bill
    Both have written home,
Tellin’ us about their trip,
    Where they’re apt to roam.
They’ve been gone eleven months,
    Prospectin’ out west;
First we’ve heard from them is now;
    Said they’d done their best
But their luck seemed kinder poor,
    They’re homesick, almost.
‘Long about the twenty-fifth
    They’ll reach Painted Post.

Letters comin’ all the time,
    Mailmen, as a rule,
Say I must be runnin’ some
    Correspondence school.
Sisters, uncles, cousins, aunts,
    Long forgotten friends,
Sending picture postal cards
    Just to make amends.
But the end of this rush will
    Come soon, never fear.
Reason for it all is this:
    Christmas time is near.