Page 78 - Poetry-Whimsy

Modern Improvements

Imagine with what dire dismay
Old Matthew, Mark and Luke and John,
Could they come back to earth to-day,
Would view the present goings on!
Where once they walked, or rode on asses,
The engine whistle cuts the wind.
And new disciples, fixed with passes,
Curse because the train’s behind!
And think of Solomon, the great,
Laying, craftily, his lines,
To get some kind of special rate
For all his wives and concubines!

There’s Adam, too, how he would sigh,
And turn to Eve, and speak her low,
When first he heard the brakeman cry:
“Eden! Change cars for Jericho!”

And Moses, how surprised he’d be,
When standing back upon the ridges,
And looking on the Old Dead Sea,
He saw old Pharaoh mending bridges!
There’s old Nebuchadnezzar, too,
Doomed in fields his life to pass;
How he would stare, when first he viewed
The sign: “Park. Keep off the grass!”
And Samuel, too, what would he do,
If he, when kneeling all alone,
Should hear the brisk “Hello! hello!”
Of Eli at the telephone?
And how the multitude that fed
Upon the sermon on the Mount
Would feel their hair raise as they read
The Associated Press account!

—(New York Star)

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