Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-01-14
Old Songs, Old Flowers and Mother
BY DIR. FRANK CRANE.

BY DR.. FRANK CRANE.
~ IMEON FORD, said the Sentimental Man, when he
- used, to run the old Grand Union hotel, now
~ demolished by the bosom of progress won't
to say that he didn't how many hotels his
old hotel.
There are other things besides hostelries castles
institutions, habits and wines where old is
asset
And the greatest of these is song. The cleverest
musical genius in the world might compose a song of
such SURPRISING originality and that all experts
and critics would be beside themselves admira-
tion. Yet most of us common mortals would pass it
by, 1t would leave cold while little, dinky
melody without genius art, just because it is DID,
would sweep all our heart-strings with wild gust of
passion, unstop tear fountains and send through
US the keeneet sweetness of love tenderness.
That melody flies swiftest into the SOUL and is
Asurest to its mark, which is feathered by time.
1t is not the tune alone, but the -overtones, the
swift passing, cloudke of forgotten faces
Of voices now forever STILL the pensive tnge kinds
of happiness possible the fragrance as
of strange lilies blowing in the twilight of
the past.
The higher values of anything lie in those intan-
gble qualities that cannot be defined The
richest treasures of love elusive strong
est comforts of faith beyond And a little
scent-laden breeze of heaven blowing in the
dow of memory will break the more certainly
than the most smashing gusts of melodrama.
Rock Me to Sleep, Mother" That is poem that
used to be in the Fourth Reader when to school
Whether it is good poetry or not 1 haven't the
slightest idea. Probably It bears the same rea-
tion to great poems" that marigold hollyhock and
princess feather bear to the Rose de Brabant
the Gadiolus Brenchlyensis
sBut 1T was down in the garden among the petu-
MAS and the purple and hre-busn that
/ used to walk with my baby hand tightly cutchnx
mothers finger, while shetalked to me precious non
sense and laughed at my swarnng fancies and some
how big boxes of American Beauties and s12 lunches
of violets do not connote that of thing Simple
old things have their niche
don't remember much about her views of voting
nor her social prestige her ideas on child
training. diet and eugenics cannot recall The
main thing that Sits back me now through the
don't think she knew how bring up children; she
was too much of child herself, seemed to like
to lie on the with tell stories or to run
and hide and scream and laugh with children, than
to homilize us along the straight narrow pata
She always hugging She would wake me
up to play with She would kiss me Unfortunately
She loved in rather fierce And It,
had a sunny face. To me it like Cod all
the beatitudes saints tell of Him.
And sing! OF all the sensations peasurable my
life nothing compare with rapture crawling
up into her lap and going to sleep, while she swung
and fro in her rocking chair and sang.
Thinking of this 1 wonder if the woman of today,
all her tremendous notions and plans, realizes
what almighty factor she is in shaping of her
child for veal or woe?
I wonder if she realizes how much sheer love and
attention count for in childs life?
I wonder If she knows what it create
memories that going to stay green when life's
hotter impressions have gone?
Thus unused the Sentimental Man.
Copyright, 1916 by Frank Crane)