The glory of the good old days has passed from earth away,
The lumbering loom, the spinning wheel, Maud Muller raking hay;
The old rail fence, the moldboard plough, the scythe and reaping hook,
Corn shuckings, and Virginia reel, and young folks' bashful look.
Now poor old father limps behind his motorcycle son
And sees the world go whizzing by and knows his race is run.
With rheumatism in his joints and crotchets in his brain,
He finds that he can hardly catch th' accommodation train.
Two dozen bottles of the oil of Dr. Up-To-Date
Would put to flight the rheumatiz and straighten out his pate;
But fogy folks don't have the faith, nor interest in the race,
They'd rather drive a slow coach horse than go at such a pace.
Efficiency! efficiency! In business, church and school,
Where Culture in a dunce's cap sits grinning on a stool,
And wondering where the thing will end, and what the prize will be,
When Intellect, all geared and greased, is mere machinery.
Old Homer and the Iliad, the Trojan and the Greek,
The Parthenon and Phidias, not ancient, but antique.
Great Cæsar and the Gallic War and Virgil with his rhyme,
And Cicero have all gone down beneath the wheel of time.
And Dante now lies buried deep beneath the art debris,
Where Michael Angelo once wrought for immortality.
The Swan of Avon's not in school, but on the movie screen,
The Prince of Denmark can not talk but still he may be seen.
All history and literature, philosophy and truth
Would take about three evenings off of any modern youth
To master through the picture art if he the time could spare,
From vaudeville shows and joy rides and tango with the fair.
The problem is to find an hour so busy is the age,
And so important is the work and tempting is the wage.
Then what's the use of poetry or history anyhow?
Best turn your back upon the past and face the present now!
Get busy, and be on the job, the world will pay for skill.
It says: "Deliver me the goods, and then present your bill."
The family circle and the talk around the old hearth stone,
The sage advice, when backlogs glowed and grease lamps dimly shone,
Are mouldy pictures of the past, mere myths of long ago,
When grandsires had found out some things that children didn't know.
How many bushels can you raise upon your plot of ground?
How many blades of grass now grow where once just one was found?
Oh! Nature is the proper theme, but better Wordsworth drop,
San Jose scale and coddling moth will get your apple crop.
Ben Johnson and Will Shakespeare and Goldsmith all are dead.
Put nodules in alfalfa roots not dramas in your head.
Tomato canning's orthodox if done with due dispatch,
Don't let your daughter dream of fame, just show her how to patch.
The laws of sanitation soon will put the fly to flight,
Then stop tuberculosis next and win the hookworm fight.
If man could live a century it may be in the strife,
He'd learn to make a living if he didn't make a life!
What matter if the primrose is beside the river's brim,
A yellow primrose growing there and nothing more to him,
He's caught the trick of sustenance (but lost his taste for rhyme),
Though the oxen in the clover fields have had that all the time!
GRANDMOTHER DAYS
Ah, Grandmother Young was wrinkled and old
When she sat by the mantelpiece;
And she wore a cap with many a fold
Of ribbon and lace, as rich as gold,
And worked in many a crease:
And the billowy clouds of smoke that rolled
From her little stone pipe whenever she told
Of the quest of the Golden Fleece,
Wrought me to think that Grandmother Young
Was shriveled and gray when Homer sung
Of the gods of ancient Greece.
But all of her marvelous mythical lore
Was naught to her magical power—
Transforming a house with a puncheon floor
To a palace of wealth with a golden door
That lead to a castle tower—
An attic loft with a wonderful store
Of things that we feared, but longed to explore—
Our grandmother's ancient dower.
Oh, grandmother's charm could change but a base
Rude vessel of clay to a Haviland vase,
A weed to a royal flower.
Ah, grandmother's home was a temple of grace
And my child-heart worshipped there,
When Balm-of-Gilead around the place,
Like incense, for a mile of space,
Perfumed the glorious air;
And the song that came from the feathered race
In the boughs of the tangled interlace
Of apple and peach and pear,
Enthralled me like the magic spell
Of siren music when it fell
On old Ulysses' ear.
Last summer I passed where the palace once stood
Whose beauty my life beguiled;
It's a cabin now; and the charmed wood
Of sugar and oak, in brotherhood
Of walnut and hickory, aisled
For gathering nuts and the merry mood
That only our childhood understood,
By man has been defiled.
Oh, how can I ever cease to praise
The fairy enchantment of grandmother days
When I was a little child!
JUST TO DREAM
Just to dream when sapphire skies
Are as blue as maidens' eyes;
Just to dream when petals sow
All the earth with pink and snow;
Just to sit by youth's bright stream,
Gazing at its crystal gleam—
Listening to the wren and dove—
Hearing only songs of love—
Just to dream.