NEWSPAPER VERSE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 99, 24 April 1909, Page 6

NEWSPAPER VERSE.

FALL IN!

Fall in ! The bugle calls you To join the muster roll, Not idly here, to; stand at view And cheer while better men than you : Shall kick the winning goal! Fall in ! Your country calls you To duty yet unlearned, Lest, all unfitted for the fray, You find upon her darkest day Your futile aid is spurned! Fall in! Your women call you To ply the soldiers-trade That when the sullen guns shall roar /The weak may face the tide of war Serene and unafraid!. Fall in"! Your homesteads call you To keep'them ever free, Ever to train the eye and hand That you may sweep the invading band Back to the circling sea!

AN OLD STORY

One more unfortunate, Frenzied his look, Rashly importunate, After a cook.

Bows down with deference, So does his wife, Asks for no reference; Not on your life. Pays a large salary, Offers her treats. • Nix on the galleryOrchestra seats. Pets her-and pampers her, Handles with care, Never once hampers her; Never would dare. Stands all her flightless, But one sad day Sees her high mightiness Flutters away. I—Washington Herald.

THE MIDDLE OF THE MONTH

The dark low water slips under the bridge And washes the stones no more; The shrill, night wind sweeps over the ridge, . . 'Tismdrn, and the storm isoer. I watch them go and I 1 long to know If ever at rest they be, For a, vow that the money goes even so

That Fate ever sends to me. r It comes like rain on the gentle dew, It vanishes as the wind; While still the pride of my wealth is

new, Ah, me! it is lost to-mind. 'Tis lost like the silent clouds that

' blow r Far out of the land to sea. For I vow that my money goes even so, And never comes back to me. R.M.

JUST DON'T

(C. L. Armstrong.) Do you feel you'd like to quit? Don't! Get' to feeling you don't fit? \ Don't! Do you want to yell "all-in" Cause your wind's a little thin And you think you'll never win? * :' Don't. -■ ■ There's a kick you want to make? Don't! - There's a head you want to break.''

Don't! Do you feel you want to whine Like a genuine canine And send blue streaks down the line? Well Don't,

When you see a chance to duck,

Don't! When you want to, chuck your iucic, Don't! Keep right on without a stop 4nd you'll sure show up on top, Tf -just when you want to flop, You Don't.

THE SEVEN STAGES OF A LIE

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely

players; . They have their exits and their en-

trances; , i And one man in his time plays many

The Pworst of which is that he acts

the'lie, • „. , The acii having seven stages. l<irst

the fib; ~ An artless thing, transparent as the

111* Essays he ne,st deceit of subtler sorts, Involving something of malign m-

But Nowise dangerous. Fabrication

He tiles, with just enough'of trutti

therein n , fSb give it virtuous semblance. U artier Still, , y •Ho next employs two untruths so vL.-

posed , ~ That seeraingly they ma-e a oi-utn And then,

Grown bolder, tries ' prevarication . bald, Daringly trusting to a storm of words To breed forgetfulness. The sixth stage shifts The action into falsehood yet adorned . . - - By some last vestiges of decency And sense of honour. Last of all the lie; \ . .-. The bokPfac^d, black, audacious, odious lie; The brazen, villainous, blank-blanked ; slanderous lie; > Sans base, sans sense, sans shame, sans decency. . —Willodore Shakesvelt. N.Y. Life.

WANTED—A RECIPE

I wish some codger, hoary-haired and mellow, Would send me his recipe for growing old;, vSome good old sport on whom the sere and yellow Lies hlie a nimbus of autumnal gold. For I am lorty, fat, and 'something weary, I've seen the world and loved what I have seen, i i But though 1 find a winter fireside < cheery, My heart goes roving when, the i fields are green. My youth is,spent—by many signs I know it— My boyhood's friends grown reverend and sage; They, feel their_ years—by many signs they show it— In pranks ~of folly they no more engage. jf I've passed tlie time when girls will let me kiss them— Or lure nte on because that I am

I; . . . ■ . And those who did—how bitterly I miss them— Would view me noW with a forbidding eye.

Yet in my heart still wells the joy of childhood.' The open road still lures me on its quest, The solitudes and mysteries of the wildwood N Call as of old and will not let .me rest. ■ ; Though sunlit dreams still throng my eager vision. ' And prompt my soul to the .aspiring rhyme. How many, shattered by the world's derision. Lie wrecked- and stranded "on the shoals of Time."

I must grow old because it seems the fashion, Yet I would not be bilious and

austere, Untouched by lovey immovable to passion, , Didactic, prosy, st<^gy, and severe. Send me my lesson~if you've truly learned it, Tell me your secret, tell me all the truth, And I will pay when fully ,you have earned it, v With what I can of my abounding youth. —Peter MoArthur.