Henry O'Meara Ballads of America

Decoration

A NEWSPAPER GREETING

ON THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE "BOSTON JOURNAL" UNDER
THE MANAGEMENT OF MR. STEPHEN O'MEARA
T0 readers tried - new-found or time-won friends -
Our "Journal" half a century's greeting sends,
By Progress changed, to front congenial eye,
From folio grave to livelier quarto guise,
With future form and vesture turned to view,
Yet held to good old traits and features true.
 
As for enhancement wrought she points in proof
From bustling basement up to airy roof -
From type that marks her clear impressioned dress
To throbbing cylinder and pulsing press,
Moving as' symbols of the Age's' power,
Compressing worth of weeks into an hour,
With force that whirls the letter-face so fast,
Faust, Schöffer - Gutenberg - would gaze aghast,
For these gone fathers of the Art Preservative
Would fear us lost to all their paths conservative.
 
But our new product's claims are not confined
To merits touching a mechanic's mind -
Ever must roll of speediest press be vain
Apart from swifter press-work of the brain;
With that each quickened day's revolving wheel
Its quota of revival will reveal -
With that our full rejuvenated "Journal,"
Pressing, in this régime, her round diurnal,
A vital pledge for her new quarto holds
In life infused that every leaf enfolds,
And thus without duplicity presages
A duplication of her progress as her pages.
 
Decoration
THE GENIUS OF THE PRESS CONTENTS THE WAR SONGS

 

Edited and formatted by Sheldon Brown

updated Wednesday, April 19, 2000
URL: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/omeara/newspaper.html
Copyright © 2000 Sheldon Brown