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The Chip on the Shoulder

LEARN this now before you are older:

Don’t go through life with a chip on your shoulder,

Always aggrieved and ever offended,

Fancying wrongs that are not intended.

Let not a sense of humor desert you,

Take it that nobody means to hurt you,

Find no insult in idle chatter,

Pass it over; it doesn’t matter.

Look for the best in everybody,

Value the wool, forget the shoddy;

Get in the habit of liking people.

Love is the spire on every steeple.

Arthur Guiterman

In the Hospital

BECAUSE on the branch that is tapping my pane

A sun-wakened leaf-bud, uncurled,

Is bursting its rusty brown sheathing in twain,

I know there is Spring in the world.



Because through the sky-patch whose azure and white

My window frames all the day long

A yellow-bird dips for an instant of flight,

I know there is Song.



Because even here in this Mansion of Woe

Where creep the dull hours, leaden-shod,

Compassion and Tenderness aid me, I know

There is God.

Arthur Guiterman

Pershing at the Front

THE General came in a new tin hat

To the shell-torn front where the war was at;

With a faithful Aide at his good right hand

He made his way toward No Man’s Land,

And a tough Top Sergeant there they found,

And a Captain, too, to show them round.



Threading the ditch, their heads bent low,

Toward the lines of the watchful foe

They came through the murk and the powder stench

Till the Sergeant whispered, “Third-line trench!”

And the Captain whispered, “Third-line trench!”

And the Aide repeated, “Third-line trench!”

And Pershing answered- not in French-

“Yes, I see it. Third-line trench.”



Again they marched with wary tread,

Following on where the Sergeant led

Through the wet and the muck as well,

Till they came to another parallel.

They halted there in the mud and drench,

And the Sergeant whispered, “Second-line trench!”

And the Captain whispered, “Second-line trench!”

And the Aide repeated, “Second-line trench!”

And Pershing nodded: “Second-line trench!”



Yet on they went through mire like pitch

Till they came to a fine and spacious ditch

Well camouflaged from planes and Zeps

Where soldiers stood on firing steps

And a Major sat on a wooden bench;

And the Sergeant whispered, “First-line trench!”

And the Captain whispered, “First-line trench!”

And the Aide repeated, “First-line trench!”

And Pershing whispered, “Yes, I see.

How far off is the enemy?”

And the faithful Aide he asked, asked he,

“How far off is the enemy?”

And the Captain breathed in a softer key,

“How far off is the enemy?”



The silence lay in heaps and piles

And the Sergeant whispered, “Just three miles.”

And the Captain whispered, “Just three miles.”

And the Aide repeated, “Just three miles.”

“Just three miles!” the General swore,

“What in the heck are we whispering for?”

And the faithful Aide the message bore,

“What in the heck are we whispering for?”

And the Captain said in a gentle roar,

“What in the heck are we whispering for?”

“Whispering for?” the echo rolled;

And the Sergeant whispered, “I have a cold.”

Arthur Guiterman

The Passionate Suburbanite To His Love

COMMUTE with me, my Love, and be merry;

How vain in the City to dwell

When apple-trees blow in Dobbs' Ferry

And lilacs adorn New Rochelle!

White Plains is the Garden of Allah

And Pelham's the Pearl of the Sea;

There's bliss in the name of Valhalla—

Oh, fly to the Suburbs with me!



Then won't you commute on my family ticket?

To Westchester County we'll flee.

Delightful Westchester,

What place is sequester!

Oh, won't you commute, Love, with me?



I'll pluck you the earliest crocus

In Orange or Englewood fair;

We'll sport on the meads of Hohokus,

We'll ramble through Cultured Montclair;

We'll rest in Exclusive Tuxedo,

Or Nutley, for artists renowned,

And still shall I carol my credo,

"The Suburbs are Paradise Found."



Then won't you commute on my family ticket?

Perhaps you prefer New Jersee;

For who could grow weary

Of life on the Erie!

Then won't you commute, Love, with me?



The Isle 'twixt the Sound and the Ocean—

Ah, has it no Message for you?

I cannot but think with emotion

Of Flushing, Jamaica, and Kew,

Of Bayshore of youthful vacations,

Of Little Neck, Great Neck, and Quogue

And all of the other Clam Stations

Including Speonk and Patchogue.



Then come take a trip on my family ticket

Where Long Island breezes blow free.

To live on the Subway

Is surely a dub way,--

Then fly to the Suburbs with me!

Arthur Guiterman

Strictly Germ-proof

THE Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup

Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;

They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised;—

It wasn't Disinfected and it wasn't Sterilized.



They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease;

They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees;

They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope

And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap.



In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears;

They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears;

They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand

And elected it a member of the Fumigated Band.



There's not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play;

They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day;

And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup—

The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup.

Arthur Guiterman

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness

THE tusks which clashed in mighty brawls

Of mastodons, are billiard balls.



The sword of Charlemagne the Just

Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.



The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,

Was feared by all, is now a rug.



Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,

And I don't feel so well myself.

Arthur Guiterman

Heritage

THIS is the land that we love; here our fathers found refuge,

Here are the grooves of their plows and the mounds of their graves;

These are the hills that they knew and the forests and water,

Glorious rivers and seas of rejuvenant waves.



This is our heritage, this that our fathers bequeathed us,

Ours in our time, but in trust for the ages to be;

Wasting or husbanding, building, destroying, or shielding,

Faithful or faithless — possessors and stewards are we.



What of our stewardship? What do we leave to our children?

Crystalline, health-giving fountains, or gutters of shame?

Fields that are fertile, or barrens exhausted of vigor?

Burgeoning woodlands, or solitudes blasted by flame?



Madly we squander the bounty and beauty around us

Wrecking, not using, the treasure and splendor of earth;

Only is grief unavailing for glory departed —

Only in want do we count what the glory is worth.

Arthur Guiterman

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