50+ Lifestyles

Max’s Musings

By Max Molleston

We can wish on the new year, and we can write down what we want to get done in this time. We 50+ers  and our cohorts want some things to take place in the years span. We can attempt to make it happen, can hope to shape the future, those futures that concern us.

A pastor in New York City penned this poem, and many others, for his parish in the late 1800-hundreds.

Be Strong

Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift,
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle; face it. ‘Tis God’s Gift.
Be strong!
Say not, “The days are evil, –  Who’s to blame?”
And fold not the hands and acquiesce, – Oh shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God’s name.
Be strong!
It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day, how long.
Faint not, fight on! To-morrow comes the song.

The pastor’s name is Maltbie Davenport Babcock, and one of his posts was the Brick Presbyterian Church, where his portrait hangs. His poem, nicely rhymed while moving listeners toward action, is one of One Hundred and One Famous Poems, published in the U.S. and Canada in 1958. The poems, all written by poets now dead, are recognized as memorable ones, with a few  forgotten. We continue to enjoy looking  back upon poets and their poems. Styles of presentation on a page in a book showed similar formats in those days. The difference was how long or how brief these poetic efforts showed up. Shorter ones could be digested in our brains and repeated for our classmates  or  parents and other fond relatives. One-hundred years in the past, my father was a student in the schools of Lineville, Iowa. As the town name indicates,  divided. North, in Iowa, south, in Missouri. He could, and would recite, “Twinkle, Twinkle  Little Star,” in Latin, if requested to do so. In those days, before the First World War,  memorizing  was held  valuable in  school schemes. Can we now suppose it was the “smart ones” who could memorize? Selected poems, Christmas carols, and some Holy Bible verses were part of the learning process, making sure the brains of the kids being educated were working, or trying hard to “get it.”

I have not discovered (or searched for) another of the poems produced from the mind and grit of Pastor Maltbie Davenport Babcock, but could wonder how he came by his middle name. The small red-bound anthology holding this  poem, and dozens of others, may have been ignored except for a “flip-through” by the  buyer and the person gifted. It looks and feels new, the fate of dozens of poetry collections nicely bound or not.  My friend Dick  Mackin , brought me many volumes of verse that appear similarly untouched. Roy J. Cook, the editor of this volume we have worked with, had this to say,

“It is the purpose of this little volume to enrich, ennoble, encourage. And for man, who has learned to love convenience, it is hardly larger than his concealing pocket.” Thus, the volume is a pocket book. A real treasure is the prose section at the back. It includes Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg, The Ten Commandments, Magna Charta, a leaflet by Patrick Henry he titled ”The War Inevitable,” of March, 1775, and The Declaration of Independence.

All these documents look back.  The Reverend urged  his  gathered parish to look ahead, as we do. At least look to February 2015. It is a sweet time.