Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-03-07
"GENrLE sParNe.n
Poetic Calamitla..
From the Burlington Havkeye.

fTom the burlington HaEkeya.
Every day brings US in the resist
less march of time nearer and nearer
the dreaded days when poems of
Spring" will be. in order. And
Yet It seems but yesterday that the
waste baskets groaned with their
unwOnted miles of sodes" and
''idyls" and greetings" and things
to spring. But the great pendulum
of the world has swung through an
other year, and the heart breaking
aictffiion under which mankind
groaned almost a year ago, which
has taken its crushing weight from
the hearts that bled under it when
the last budding spring flower Incl
ted eleven millions of free born
American people to write poetry
and send 1T to the newspapers, Is
ready to wear out ones life AGAIN.
Men of America! whose handwri-
ting no created living thing can
read and whose spelling no diction-
airy can Justify; women of the re-
public, who invariable write on
both sides of the paper, never indsnt
a paragraph, and always begin every
line with a little letter, and sign
yourselves "Maud''-listen! We
are aware that spring is coming
The calender of the German. insur.
ance company tells us that. We
will also be informed by reliable
authority when it is here. We viii
be glad of it. We will observe the
season with the most solemn and
impressive ceremonies. We viii do
all that your poems on last spring
commanded, suggested, entreated.
and invited us to do. We will walk
down messy paths meath fragrant,
unfolding leafy buds. We will
walk around a mile track if it will
do you any good. We will 'swalk
the bee line, Aunt Jemima, no, no,
no, even." We will pick violets in
cool sequestered glens, where the
checkered sunlight falls in tremulous
interrupted rays, if you insist upon
it. We will pick buttercups, dai-
sizes, sailors tr-srs, and ali other
spring flowers; we will pick our
teeth, pick some mans pocket-old
Vanderbilt's, for instance. We will
try to satisfy your alteration for
spring, but don't-and we use the
word in its most orthodox sense
don't send us any poetry on spring.
Don't do it. If you must write l..
write it and burn it up at home,
where your friends can see you; they
will think better of you for it. We
are aware that this pleading for i'm
munity from the usual annual deluge
may appear trife premature, but
we are also aware that you are at
work on that spring poem now
You are adding sixteen additional
verses to the one we had the pleas
ure destroying last year. Don't
send it to us. Sell it to some poor
blind man, who can sing it and
blackmail people into buying his 81
lence, as though he was a member
of the Legislature. But don't CON-
plete it with the heartless intention
of sending it here. Don't be so de
liberate in your yillainy as that.
Cut this out and paste it IN your
hat. Get it ''by heart' and reeite
it as an encore to your poem, every
time you read that sublime and
beautiful efusion to your friends.
Look at it every time you think of
publishing, and you Will draw one
sad heart nearer to you In true,
grateful affection, for we will love
you, and yearn for you, and find out
your address and try to borrow mon
ey of you, and do everything else
we can to evince our gratitude.
If the plot of the spectators had
been carried to a successful consum-
alton they would probably have
both made handsome fortune-say
$50, ,O9p among themselves.
Rumors were prevalent on the
street and in the hotels last night
that other members of the Legfsla-
ture were implicated in the fraud,
but they were not well authentica-
ted.
A detective of the Post Office
Department at Washington is here
to ferret out the guilty parties
The Legislative Committee expect
to be able to make report of their
operations to the House at an early
day.