Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1874-03-12
" Gentle Spring.

EVERY day brings us in the resistless
march of time nearer and nearer the dread
ed days when poems on "spring" will be
in order And yet IL seems but yesterday
that the waste baskets groaned with UNI
wonted miles Of "odes" and idyls" and
greetings" and things to spring. But
the great pendulum of the world has
swung through another year, and the
heartbreaking affiiction under which
mankind groaned almost a year ago,
which has taken its crushing weight
from the hearts that bled under it when
last the budding spring flowers melted
eleven millions of free-born American
people TO write poetry and send II to the
newspapers, is ready TO wear out ones
life again. Men of America whose hand
writing no created living thing can read,
and whose spelling no dictionary can
Justify; women of the Republic, who in
variably write on both sides Of the paper,
never indent a paragraph, and always
begin every line with little letter, and
sign yourselves "Maud"-listen! We
are aware that spring is coming. The
calendar of the German Insurance
Company tells us that. We will
also be informed by reliable au-
thority when it is here. We will be glad
of il. We will observe the season with
the most solemn and impressive cere-
monies. We will do all that your poems
on last spring commanded, suggested, en-
treated, and invited us TO do. We will
walk down messy paths meath fragrant,
unfolding leafy buds. We will walk
around mile track If 1t will do you any
good. We will "walk the bee line, Aunt
Jemina. no, no, no." even. We will pick
violets In cool, sequestered glens, where
the chcckered sunlight falls In tremulous,
interrupted rays, If you insist upon it.
We will pick buttercups, daisies sailors
tr-srs, and all 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 say it kindly
but firmly--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 il, write 1t and burn 1t up
at home, where your friends can see you;
they will think better of you for II.
We are aware that this pleading for
immunity from the usual annual deluge
may appear trifie premature, but we are
alhO aware that you are at work on that
spring poem now. You are adding six
teen additional verses 10 the one we had
the pleasure OF destroying last year.
Don't fend 1t TO us. Sell 1t 10 some poor
blind man, who can sing it and blackmail
people into buying his silence, as though
he was member Of the Legislature. But
don't complete 1t with the heartless inten-
ton of sending 1t here. Don't be 80 de-
liberate in your yillainy as that. Cut this
out and paste 1t into your hat. Get 1t
by heart" and recite IL as an encore to
your poem, every time you read that sub
lime and beautiful effusion TO your friends.
Look at it every time you think of pub
fishing, 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 Dor
row money Of you, and do everything
else we can to evince our gratitude
Burlington HaUk Eye.