ContentsSometimes I doubt if it's worthwile
To live the way I should,
Then faith walks up and takes my hand
To lead me through the wood.
**********
Sometimes I think I can't endure
The sordidness of things,
But hope leaps up and leads me on
To where the bluebird sings.
**********
Sometimes I feel I can't exist
In poverty and pain,
Then charity knocks at my door,
and all is well again.
- Beulah B. Pearson
There was a man lived down our street,
Whom I have often chanced to meet
As he trudged by, cane in each hand,
His feet contrary to command..
With dauntless courage, I would say,
Wearily he went his way.
While other, gaily, by him went,
As if they were to fires bent.
One day I missed him from the street;
I missed those weary, trudging feet;
A neighbor came by, stopped to chat,
And sadly mentioned to me that --
That day they had laid him away.
I turned away lest I display
The tear that welled up in my eye --
Somehow I seemed to feel that I
Would miss that man, bent and lame,
Although I'd never known his name.
- Beulah B. Pearson
(Published in the Oregon Journal, September 4, 1936)
Nice things for me have been so few
But its been nice just knowing you.
Will this, too, come to an end?
You've made life seem a bit worthwhile
You've even made a dummy smile
By being just its friend.
- Beulah B. Pearson
'Tis well that I remember
The day you came along,
Just eighteen years ago today
When all the world was wrong.
Your tiny feet seemed incomplete
To tread life's weary way;
Yet we were glad that you had come
To us that stormy day.
It seemed the world was brighter --
Just having a mite like you,
And little rays of sunshine
Were bound to shine right through.
You gladdened all our weary hearts
And drove our fears away --
It seemed that wartorn Europe
Had taken a holiday.
Helpful, kind, and loving too
You stayed our home to bless.
We only hope we've been to you
Just half you've been to us.
Happiness we wish for you
Through all the coming years,
And that your heart shall never know
The bitterness of tears.
To all the rest you have grown up --
Since long ago eighteen,
But you are still our little girl
With all that's in between.
- Beulah B. Pearson
As Mem'ry walks back through the years
I draw apart the veil of tears
To let my heart be glad.
This day will sacred be to me
Unto the man who use to be
Our own dear, darling Dad.
Once more you stand above my bed
To gaze at Tootsie's downy head,
Our tiny first born child;
I feel your kiss upon my lips,
See it on little finger tips
I see you as you smiled.
The night that Jack made things go wrong,
How, out you went and rushed along
The rough and rutted road --
The doctor came with shoes untied
That he might reach me 'ere I died
With unborn child a load.
The rain upon the old car top,
I hear the patter of each drop;
You drove too carefully.
To save me any extra pain,
Protected me from cold and rain
The night Sue came to me.
And when I looked o'er Mickey's head
Into Death's door, from out my bed,
You held my hand in yours.
You called me back from Death again
You called me back to you, and then
To me you closed the doors.
Although our lives are torn asunder
Let's bear up, dear, and not go under
Someday we may be glad.
And I will keep in memory,
This day, for him who used to be
Our own dear, darling Dad.
- Beulah B. Pearson
(Handwritten notation: "Father's Day, June 16th 1940...omit last verse")
To lose through death is but a day,
There is no hopes there in the clay.
To lose in life a greater sorrow --
New hopes are born with each tomorrow.
New hopes are born but soon have died
For each of them were crucified.
- Beulah B. Pearson
Old "Tragedy" reared up his head,
Surveyed the dying and the dead
There in the wake of storm.
He singled out a little lad
Who grieved and brokenhearted had
Bent o'er his mother's form.
He shook his head in wicked glee
To see the form of little Lee
Within the mother's arms;
She seemed to try so faithfully
Even in eternity
To shield it from all harm.
He said, "I'm not yet through with you
I've lots in store before I'm through
I've only just begun'
Then off he went upon his way
Until about a year to day
He said, "I'll have more fun."
He called upon this selfsame lad
And took away his dear old Dad,
So slyly as he slept.
Two lads there was then left alive
Out of this family of five,
But he that promise kept.
There was insurance left they said
But when their unknown Uncle Ned
Had kept them scarce a year --
He put them in an orphan's home
Until they had to manhood grown
Where they wept bitter tears.
When Tragedy had once more struck
This time it was an upset truck
Upon his brother John
The lad cared not what happened then
He said, "I'm doomed alas, amen."
Old Tragedy had won.
This little lad I knew so well
Is now confined in prison cell
Within San Quentin's walls'
He has no parents, family, friends
He now is what the world condemns:
A number, that is all.
He had no one, he thought, to care
Just what he did or how or where,
He'd only memories
Of pain and horror, selfish greed
With seldom e'er a kindly deed
How could he cherish these?
He does not write in bitterness
I'm sure he wouldn't have me guess
That his nonchalant air
Hides many words between the lines
He does not know I sometime find
A tear that's fallen there.
- Beulah B. Pearson
WHEN
FATHER LOST THE AUTO KEYS
When father lost the auto keys
He had the family all on knees.
We searched completely all the floors,
In side the house, the out of doors.
We even looked into the stove
And then into our pockets dove
To see if we, by some mistake
Had managed fathers keys to take.
But all our efforts were in vain
So we went o'er the place again.
As father looked beneath the couch
He stepped on Jackie's finger "Ouch"
Jack cried, jerking it out.
"Now cant you watch what you're about?"
No curses then could quite compare
With our dear father's wrathful glare
As he stomped from room to room
And mother clutched her worn out broom
Sweeping the dust from corners dark,
This hunting keys was sure no lark.
When all our hunting came to check
The house was certainly a wreck.
A rumpled rug, a fallen chair;
Cushions tossed from here to there,
Curtains twisted, pictures askew,
Books and magazines old and new,
Were torn from out their cases
Leaving yawning empty spaces.
The old piano in disarray,
It's grinning teeth a mockery.
The artists there seemed to appear
The actors in a circus queer.
For upside down the music stood
Quite in tune with our tragic mood.
When finally we had to give up
The old car keys had not turned up.
But we had keys and keys galore
Almost enough to stock a store.
When father sorted through the lot
He said "not one these keys we've got
Will fit that car and I'm afraid
That I'll just have to have one made."
Then he looked up so meek and beat,
And then glanced slyly at his feet
For right there at his feet did lay
The keys that had upset our day.
- Beulah B. Pearson
WHEN
I SAIL ON THE SEA O' SUDS
When I sail on the sea o' suds
A washing all the family duds
The music of my old machine
Just tends to make my mind more keen
For always on washday it seems
I'm just chuck full of thoughts and dreams,
And as I ride the ocean wide
Upon that sudsy tub o' tide
When I dive down for sock or such
It's sunken gold then that I touch.
I never get my line out first
Because I feel my heart will burst
If I don't stop and write them down --
Those lines that just keep hangin' 'round.
But always at the end of day
I feel repaid for work and play;
For then besides my clothes on line
I have my verse all down in rhyme.
- Beulah B. Pearson
WINTER
WONDERLAND
(Crater Lake)
Winter gently raised an awning
Like the beauty of the dawning;
And ever shifting to and fro --
Made up Nature's bed of snow.
Putting all her young to sleep
'Neath a snowy blanket, deep.
She wove a spread of frosty lace --
Tucked huge pillows into place,
Then as a hen her chicks would hover
Spreads another feath'ry cover.
Now a magic wand is raised
And when all the land is glazed'
Sapphire blue in diamonds set --
Nothing has surpassed it yet.
Every rock becomes a throne,
On it lies a jeweled crown;
In the mids't of Wonderland
Stands a fairy castle, grand.
'Cicles like a giant's spear
Hang from eaves at castle's rear;
Every cliff a giant slide
Enormous ones on every side.
Dead, old trees are snowmen, high,
Fingers pointing to the sky.
Evergreens are ghostly goblins,
Fairy heads around them bobbin'.
Elfin builders are my host
In this fairyland of frost
They have hung the high tree tops
Everywhere with diamond drops.
Every bough is hung with stars --
Limbs are turned to crystal spars;
Reaching from the trunk across;
Hanging thick with silvered moss
From wristlets made of jeweled lace
Icy fingers reach my face
As I speed o'er hill tops white;
Playing I'm a fairy knight.
Dodging tiny darts of sleet
As I go on wing'ed feet
Through this land of snow and ice --
Klamath's Winter Paradise.
- Beulah B. Pearson