What’s Trumps!

WHAT’S TRUMPS!
“There are so many cards to play,
So many ways to choose,
In Love and Politics and War,
In forwarding our views,
With ladies fair, and statesmen wise,
Or men of lesser bumps,
Before we lead our stronger suit
‘Tis well to know what’s trumps.

One, worshiping at Beauty’s shrine
I knelt in bondage sweet,
Ad breathed my vows with eagerness
And offered at her feet
My soul, well stored with Cupid’s wealth
A love cemented lump;
A king of diamonds won the tick,
My heart was not a trump.

Raving to see my rival win
Upon a single Rub,
As he played the Duce with me,
I followed with a Club.
Two days within a station house
Reflecting on my sin,
I found, as others may have done,
Clubs very seldom win.

Grown wise by sad experience,
I ceased to deal with maids,
I shuffled youthful follies off,
And turned up the Jack of Spades;
Yet still I find as dust is scarce
And smaller grow the lumps,
That though the Spade’s an honest card,
It is not always trumps.

But in the world of outside show,
Where Mammon rules the throng,
To ease the little jolts of life
And smoothly pass along —
To find an antidote for care,
And stern misfortunes thumps,
One card is very sure to win —
Diamonds are always trumps!”

Fort Wayne Sentinel – Fort Wayne, Indiana – 6 Feb 1858

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 220,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 9 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Soldier, We Do Not Forget

MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 30TH.

Lest we forget those who fought for the Liberties which we enjoy, may the day be fittingly observed.

MEMORIAL DAY

Soldier, we do not forget;
Purple pansies, mignonette
Show where mourning hearts are met.
Though you’ve traveled farther yet,
Past the worry and the fret
Where a scarlet sun has set.
Vivid rose and violet
On your grave with tears are wet;
Soldier, we do not forget.

Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) May 29, 1934

She is So Very Gifted!

Gifted

By ANNE CAMPBELL

She is so very gifted!
If she should write a song,
The lyric would be garbled,
The melody all wrong.
But singing to her baby
She builds a world of peace
Where sorrow does not enter,
And dark forebodings cease.

She is so very gifted!
She cannot write a book,
But all the world grows brighter
Beneath her cheerful look.
Her mind is not creative,
But with homemaking hands
She fashions all the beauty
Her family demands.

She is so very gifted!
She tries sometimes to paint,
But on her day’s brief canvas
She sketches no complaint.
Her gifts are of the spirit,
And there is joyful proof
They do not go unnoticed
Beneath her star-crowned roof.

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) Apr 5, 1937

Poor Ol’ Tom Lincoln

Another Mouth To Feed

Long Beach Independent (Long Beach, California) Feb 11, 1956

New Year – 2013

We ain’t got nothin’ but we’ll give you all half of that!

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jan 1, 1913

NOW WRITE IT!

Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Jan 1, 1913

It’s All Yours

Albuquerque Tribune (Albuquerque, New Mexico) Jan 1, 1963

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 390,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 7 years for that many people to see it. This blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

Click here to see the complete report.

NOTE: Kind of odd, the report lists the most commented on post as “Speaking of Collard Greens,” but I don’t think that is true. Maybe for a new post, but I had more new comments on a few older posts than on the one listed.

To Be Quite Fair

Tis Customary at Christmas Time — For Each to Hang a Sock —
But Don’t You Think — to Be Quite Fair —
Since Yours is Whole — n’ Mine’s Just Half —
That I Should Hang —– — A Pair?

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 24, 1928

Old-Time Christmas Tree

The Old-Time Christmas Tree.

I oft recall the Christmas tree
That bloomed when we were boys;
It seems a mystery to me
How it could hold the toys
That clung in clusters on each limb
Like grapes upon a vine,
While many a colored candle’s glim
On baubles bright would shine.

All through the reeking branches’ rifts
The wayward, wandering wax
Would gurgle over gaudy gifts,
And leave long tallow tracks;
Soft pills of purple paraffine
Would punctuate the hair
Of dolls and make their tresses’ sheen
A polka-dot affair.

The limp wax-drippings, light and dark,
Seeped down without surcease,
Bedecking beasts in Noah’s ark
With rainbow stripes of grease;
And lo a miracle was wrought
When falling candle clots
The litheless little leopard caught
And changed the creature’s spots.

The tainted touch of tinted grease,
Made a kaleidoscope
Of many a toy; the lamb’s white fleece
Was flecked like mottled soap;
The dark-bay horse was dappled blue,
The elephant turned green,
And other beasts assumed a hue
That ne’er before was seen.

Now distance lends enchantment to
Those lights of long ago,
And oft we fancy that they won
Our hearts with radiant glow;
The Yuletide tree when we were young
Seems fairer far than all
The boyhood pictures that are hung
On memory’s wide wall.

— T.B. Chrystal in N.Y. World.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Dec 23, 1912

Shallow Water

A HINT TO GIRLS.

An exchange paper says: “We have always considered it an unerring sign of innate vulgarity, when we hear ladies take particular pains to impress us with an idea of their ignorance of all domestic matters, save sewing lace, or weaving a net to enclose their delicate hands. — Ladies by some curious kind of hocus pocus, have got it into their heads that the best way to catch a husband is to show him how profoundly capable they are of doing nothing for his comfort. Frightening a piano into fits, or murdering the King’s French, may be good bait for some kinds of fish, but they must be of that kind usually found in shallow water. The surest way to secure a good husband, is to cultivate those accomplishments which make a good wife.

Wiskonsan Enquirer (Madison, Wisconsin) Oct 20, 1842