Page 64 - Poetry-Whimsy

Just under a smiling gold-spectacled face,
My grandmother’s turkey-tail fan.

— Samuel Minturn Peck (Century Magazine, 1890)

Wail of an Old-Timer

Each new invention doubles our worries an’ our troubles!
These scientific fellows are spoilin’ of our land.
With motor, wire, an’ cable, now’days we’re scarcely able
To walk or ride in peace o’ mind—an’ ‘tisn’t safe to stand.

It fairly makes me crazy to see how ‘tarnal lazy
The risin’ generation grows—an’ science is to blame.
With telephones for talkin’ an’ messengers for walkin’,
Our young men sit an’ loaf an’ smoke without a blush o’ shame.

An’ then they wa’n’t contented until some one invented
A sort o’ jerky tape-line clock, to help on wasteful ways.
An’ that infernal ticker spends money fur ‘em quicker
‘An any neighborhood o’ men in good old bygone days.
The risin’ generation is bent so on creation,
Folks haven’t time to talk, or sing, or cry, or even laugh.
But if you take a notion to want some such emotion,
They’ve got it all on tap for you, right in the phonograph!
But now a crazy creature has introduced the feature
Of artificial weather—I think we’re nearly through.
For when we once go strainin’ to keep it dry or rainin’
To suit the general public— ‘t will bu’st the world in two.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Century Magazine, 1892)

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