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   Sligo Times 24 May 1913
            GOOD TEMPER.
           (Charles Swain).

There’s not a cheaper thing on earth
       Nor yet one half so dear:
'Tis worth more than distinguished birth,
       Or thousands gain'd a-year ;
It lends the a day a new delight;
       'Tis virtue's firmest shield;
And adds more beauty to the night
       Than all the stars may yield.

It maketh poverty content;
       To sorrow whispers peace;
It is a gift from Heaven sent,
       For mortals to increase;
It meets you with a smile at morn;
       It lulls you to repose;
A flower for peer and peasant born
       An everlasting rose.

A charm to banish grief away
       To snatch the frown from care;
Turns tears to smiles, makes dullness gay—
       Spreads gladness everywhere;
And yet 'tis cheap as summer dew,
       That gems the lily's breast;
A talisman for love as true
       As ever man possessed.

As smiles the rainbow through the cloud
       When, threatening, storm begins
As music midst the tempest loud,
       That still its sweet way wins—
As spring an arch across the tide,
       Where waves conflicting roam;
So comes this seraph to our side,
       This angel of our home!

What may this wondrous spirit be,
       With power unheard before
This charm, this bright divinity?
       Good temper—nothing more!
Good temper! 'tis the choicest gift
       That woman homeward brings,
And can the poorest, peasant lift
       To bliss unknown to kings.

         A Good-Bye Kiss

A good-bye kiss is a little thing,
     With your hand on the door to go;
But it takes the venom out of the sting
Of a thoughtless word or cruel fling         
     That you made an hour ago.

A kiss of greeting is sweet & rare,
     After the toil of the day;
But it smooths the furrows out of the care
And lines on the forehead you once called fair,
     In the years that have flown away.

'Tis a little thing to say, "You are kind,
     I love you, my dear," each night;
But it sends a thrill through the heart, I find—,
For love is tender, as love is blind—,,
     As we climb life's rugged height.

We starve each other for love's caress;
     We take, but do not give.
It seems so easy some soul to bless,
But we dole love grudgingly, less & less,
     Till 'tis bitter & hard to live.
                     
                     –Andrew Lang

 Grandma Pays The Bill.

Before the busy merchant
   Stood pretty little Bess;
"I want some cloff for dolly,
   Enough to make a dress."
 
"What color? little lady?"
   The pleasant dealer said.
"Why, don't you know?" she  answered,
"I want it awful red."
 
He smiled and cut the fabric
   For the delightful little Miss.
"What does it cost ?" she questioned.
   He answered, "Just one kiss."
 
And then the clerks who heard her
   Went roaring up and down.
"My grandma said she'd pay you
   Next time she came to town."

                            Ida Hepburn

Sligo Times 2 August 1913    
        WOMAN’S AGE

This is woman's age, I tell you,
  She is striding to the front;
She is ready in her armour
  To endure the battle brunt.

This is woman's age, I tell you,
  Where’s the field she is not in?
Where’s the contest where her courage
 And her prowess cannot win?

This is woman's age, I tell you,
 And her "nay" and "yea"have weight
In considering the crises
 That decides a nation’s fate.

This is woman's age, I tell you,
 And the fetters fall away.
As she passes from oppression
Into Liberty today.

This is woman's age, I tell you,
 She is climbing up to where
Proud Parnassus rears his summit
 In the pure and perfect air.

This is woman's age, I tell you,
 She has entered every work,
And if men would still be leaders
 To their laurels they must look.

This is woman's age, I tell you,
 She will never retrograde;
Peace and Progress are her watchwords
  And on truth her feet are stair.

This is woman's age, I tell you,
  As she pledges it shall be,
By the grace of God, the noblest
  Age that earth shall ever see.

                      —Susie M. Best.

Sligo Times 28 June 1913
             Freedom

Men! whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?

Women! who shall one day bear
Sons to breathe your country’s air,
If ye hear without a blush,
Deeds to make the roused blood rush
Like red lava through your veins,
For your sisters now in chains—
Answer! are ye fit to be
Mothers of the brave and free?

Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think!
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three!!

          James Russell Lowell.


 

             Sligo Times 14 June 1913
                      What I Live For
I live for those who love me, for those I know are true,
For the heaven that smiles above me,  and waits my spirit, too;
     For the human ties that bind me,          
     For the task by God assigned me,
     And the bright hopes left behind me,
               And the good that I can do.

I live to learn their story, who’ve suffered for my sake,         
To emulate their glory, and follow in their wake;
     Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,
     The noble of all ages,
     Whose deeds crown history’s pages,         
               And Time’s great volume make.

I live to hold communion with all that is Divine,
To feel there is a union ’twixt nature’s heart and mine;
     To profit by affliction,
     Reap truths from fields of fiction,
     Grow wiser from conviction,
               And fulfil each grand design.

I live to hail that season, by gifted minds foretold,
When men shall rule by reason, and not alone for gold;
     When man to man united,
     And every wrong thing righted,         
     The whole world shall be lighted
               As Eden was of old.

I live for those who love me,  for those who know me true,
For heaven that smiles above me, and waits me comig too;
     For the cause that lacks assistance,
     For the wrong that needs resistance,
     For the future in the distance,
               And the good that I can do.

Charles Swain (1801–1874) was an English poet, sometimes called “the Manchester poet".

Susie M. Best seems to have been a well-known American author of hymns, songs and poems, at the end of the nineteenth century.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was an important American poet.

The poem, A Good-Bye Kiss, credited in the Sligo Times to Andrew Lang (1844–1912) Scots poet, novelist, and literary critic, was not actually written by him. It is usually titled Little Things, sometimes credited to Emma P. Seabury and sometimes as author unknown. Andrew Lang did write a poem entitled, Good-bye, which has a first line: Kiss me, and say good-bye, but it bears no resemblance to this one.

What I Live For was written by George Linnaeus Banks (1821–1881), a British journalist, editor, poet, playwright, amateur actor, orator, and Methodist.

Grandma Pays The Bill was actually written by Harry Edward Mills and first published in 1901. I have no idea why it is credited to Ida Hepburn in the Sligo Times. I have found no other mention of Ira Hepburn as a poet and it may have been an editor's invention.


 
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