Nothing you had to swipe or punch, or put in some amount,
and you had a friendly cashier that actually could count?

The milkman went from door to door,
For just a few cents more than a trip to the store.

The mail was delivered right to your door,
Without the junk mail that we all deplore.

There was a time when just one glance was all that it would take,
And you would know the kind of car, the model and the make.

They didn't look like turtles trying to squeeze out every mile;
They were streamlined, white walls, fins, and really had some style.

One time the music that you played whenever you would jive,
Was from a vinyl, big-holed disc they called a forty-five.

The record player had a post to keep them all in line,
And then the records would drop down and play one at a time.

Oh sure, we had our problems then, just like we do today,
As always we were striving, to find a better way.

But how the simple lives we led, still seems like so much fun,
when the only way to explain a game, was just kick the can and run?

And why would boys put baseball cards between bicycle spokes,
And for a nickel red machines had little bottled Cokes?

This life seemed so much easier and slower in some ways,
I love the new technology but I really miss those days.

So time moves on and so do we, and nothing stays the same,
But I sure love to reminisce and walk down memory lane.  

Christmas Hymn

Hail, hail the happy morn,
When Christ our Lord was born
Sound, sound His praise!
The Prince of Righteousness,
He came our world to bless,
The glorious hymn of "peace"
On earth to raise.

Angels the song began,
And then to ransomed man
The strain was given:
Hark! joining sweet and mild
The voice of little child,
Blessed by his Saviour mild,
May sing of heaven.

Peace, peace! What blissful sound!
Let hope and joy abound
This happy day:
We praise thee, God above!
Our lives thy blessing prove;
Thanks, for thy light and love,
Our souls would pay.

Sound, sound the loudest strain!
Let earth, and sky, and main
The anthem raise:
Father, thy love we bless,
Saviour, we ask thy "peace,"
Spirit, we beg thy grace,
When God we praise.

By Sarah Josepha Hale in Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, December 1859

Regret.

Why is it that my heart is asleep, and no dreams wake,
And my thoughts like smoke in the wind are scattered and shake,
And there is no pain in my heart where it ought to ache?

I have forgotten what it was to weep or carouse;
The lamps are lighted, the curtains drawn, in the house;
I have forgotten the crying of birds, the shaking of boughs.

Be content, my heart; forget these things; they are vain.
What dream once dreamed can ever be dreamed again?
What is better for a heart than to sleep and be out of pain?

Image Source: Miss Mary's Collection of Antique Photographs

Poem: Arthur Symons, Knave of Hearts 1913.

In The Seed

Kate Putnam Osgood

You have chosen coldly to cast away
The love they tell you is faithless found.
Pity or trust it is vain to pray--
Your heart they have hardened, your senses bound.
You have broken the wreaths that clasped you round,
The strength of the vine and the opening flower:
Love, torn and trampled on stony ground,
Is left to die in its blossom hour.

Well, go your ways; but, wherever they lead,
They can not leave me wholly behind.
From the flower, as it falls, there falls a seed
Whose roots round the roots of life shall wind.
So sure as the soul in the flesh is shrined,
So sure as the fire in the cloud is set,
Be you ever so cold or ever so blind,
You shall find and fathom and feel me yet.

As the germ of a tree in the close dark earth
Struggles for life in its breathless tomb,
Quickening painfully into birth,
Writhing its way up to light and room;
As it spreads its growth till the great boughs loom
A shade and a greenness wide and high,
And the birds sing under the myriad bloom,
And the top looks into the infinite sky;

So shall it be with the love to-day
Flung under your feet as a worthless thing.
The hour and the spot I can not say
Where the seed, fate-sown, at last shall spring:
Beyond, it may be, the narrow ring
Of our little world in swarming space,
After weary length of journeying,
It shall drop from the wind to its destined place.

But somewhere, I know, it shall reach its height!
Sometime it shall conquer this cruel wrong!
The sun by day, and the moon by night,
Shower and season, shall bear it along.
You will sleep and wake while it waxes strong
And green beside the appointed ways,
Till, full of blossom and dew and song,
You shall find it there after many days.

Perchance it shall be amid long despair
Of toiling over the desert sand;
When your eyes are burned by the level glare,
And the staff is fire to your bleeding hand.
Then the waving of boughs in a silent land,
And a wonder of green afar shall spread,
And your feet as under a tent shall stand,
With shadow and sweetness about your head;

And my soul, like the unseen scent of the flower,
Shall circle the heights and the depths of the tree:
Nothing of all in that consummate hour
That shall not come as part of me!
This world or that may my triumph see--
But love and life can never be twain,
And time as a breath of the wind shall be,
When we meet and grow together again!

Source: Harper's New Monthly Magazine , December 1872