Perspectives; Edgar Guest

[CelticWarlord]

Edgar Albert Guest (1881.-1959) was a British-born American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People’s Poet . The year of his birth his family moved from Birmingham to the United States where he was to grow up. After he began at the Detroit Free Press as a copy boy and then a reporter, his first poem appeared 11 December 1898. He became a naturalized citizen in 1902. For 40 years, Guest was widely read throughout North America, and his sentimental, optimistic poems were in the same vein as the light verse of Nick Kenny, who wrote syndicated columns during the same decades. From his first published work in the Detroit Free Press until his death in 1959, Guest penned some 11,000 poems which were syndicated in some 300 newspapers, reprinted in periodicals such as Collier’s and Ideals , and were published in more than 20 books, including A Heap o’ Livin’ (1916) and Just Folks (1923).

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“ Now ” - said a good book unto me - " Open my pages and you shall see
Jewels of wisdom and treasures fine, Gold and silver in every line,
And you may claim them if you but will. Open my pages and take your fill ."

“Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That " maybe it couldn’t ," but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he tried."

“I’d like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me. I’d like to be the help that you’ve been always glad to be; I’d like to mean as much to you each minute of the day, as you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way.”

“I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day; I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.”

“I have to live with myself and so, I want to be fit for myself to know.”

"They cannot ask for kindness, or for mercy plead,
Yet cruel is our blindness which does not see their need,
World-over, town or city, God trusts us with this task:
To give our love and pity to those who cannot ask.”

"Just one hasty moment of ill temper can offend
And leave an inner injury the years may never mend.
It takes no mental fiber to say harsh and bitter things;
It doesn’t call for courage to employ a lash that stings."

 

[Glennon_P]

It’s all very well to have courage and skill And it’s fine to be counted a star,
But the single deed with its touch of thrill Doesn’t tell the man you are;
For there’s no lone hand in the game we play,
We must work to a bigger scheme,
And the thing that counts in the world to-day Is, How do you pull with the team?

They may sound your praise and call you great,
They may single you out for fame,
But you must work with your running mate
Or you’ll never win the game;
Oh, never the work of life is done
By the man with a selfish dream,
For the battle is lost or the battle is won By the spirit of the team.