Holiday contemplation, and the joy of disconnecting

In that spirit I share two poems that bemoan the haste of modern life … published at the turn of the previous century in The Unwelcome Guest, by Henrietta R. Eliot.

TELEPHONES
October 20th, 1916

I WONDER if they realized
Their mercies, in the long ago,
E’re we were ruled by telephones
For good or ill, for weal or woe ?

E’re all our days were minced to bits
With friends or foes to “call us up”,
While ideas cooled upon the pen,
Or coffee in the breakfast cup.

E’re “Central” at the dead of night
Could fright us, breathless out of bed,
And bring us the ‘phone to hear
They wanted someone else instead !

When a man’s house his castle was,
Where he could say, or “Come” or “Go”,
And not be talked at, day and night,
None asking, if he would or no.

BICYCLES
Spring of 1896

BICYCLES — six — eight — twelve — fifteen !
With not a single horse between;
And riders ranging all the way
From babes, to men and women gray —
All out of sight e’re fully seen !

And does this hurrying pageant mean
That be we fat, or be we lean,
We’re all to be propelled some day
By ‘Cycles ?

O ! May the kind fates intervene !
Too fast we move, e’en now I ween
The World to haste will fall a prey;
We need less “Europe”, more “Cathay” —
Cathay — where progress still has been,
By Cycles.