Ignace Jan Paderewski

When Paderewski is forgot,
Our children's children, like as not,
Will worship in the Hall of Fame,
Some great piano-maker's name.

Oliver Herford

Oliver Herford was born in England on December 2, 1860. He was a British-born American writer, artist, and illustrator, often referred to as 'The American Oscar Wilde' for his sharp wit and humorous works. Herford authored and illustrated many books for children and adults, contributing to magazines such as "The Criterion", "Life", and "Punch". He died on July 5, 1935, in France.

Oliver Herford

The Sloth.

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

To Our Readers

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

The Mongoos.

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

William Howard Taft

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

English

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Edward Everett - "Our First Citizen"

Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast;
For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold
What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed,
What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told.

Even as the bells, in one consenting chime,
Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air,
So joined all voices, in that mournful time,
His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare.

What place is left for words of measured praise,
Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen,
Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase
That shapes his image in the souls of men?

Yet while the echoes still repeat his name,
While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse,
Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim
The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse, -

Oliver Wendell Holmes

A Study In Feeling

To be a great musician you must be a man of moods,
You have to be, to understand sonatas and etudes.
To execute pianos and to fiddle with success,
With sympathy and feeling you must fairly effervesce;
It was so with Paganini, Remenzi and Cho-pang,
And so it was with Peterkin Von Gabriel OLang.

Monsieur OLang had sympathy to such a great degree.
No virtuoso ever lived was quite so great as he;
He was either very happy or very, very sad;
He was always feeling heavenly or oppositely bad;
In fact, so sympathetic that he either must enthuse
Or have the dumps; feel ecstacy or flounder in the blues.

So all agreed that Peterkin Von Gabriel OLang
Was the greatest violinist in the virtuoso gang.
The ladies bought his photographs and put them on the shelves
In ...

Ellis Parker Butler

To Paganini

Long to the world have all the mouths of Fame,
O Paganini! thunder'd forth thy name;
Nations have vied their plausive voice to raise,
And swell the general chorus of thy praise.
Though not so loud, more dear the applause to thee
Of all the favour'd sons of harmony,
Who, with one full consent, admiring own    }
Thee as their master monarch thee alone; }
And humbly bow before thee on thy throne.    }

O'er all musicians thou stand'st far apart;
Thou hast created for thyself an art.
As, in the natural world, around the sun
The planets their career of brightness run,
Each moving in an orbit of its own,
And all obeying laws to science known.
Musicians thus, each blest with his degree
Of talent by the God of harmony,
Shine forth distinguish'd in their seve...

Thomas Oldham

The Pig-Pen.

OH, turn not from the hum-ble Pig,
My child, or think him in-fra dig.
We oft hear lit-er-a-ry men
Boast of the in-flu-ence of the Pen;
Yet when we read in His-to-ry's Page
Of Hu-man Pigs in ev-er-y age,
From Cr[oe]-sus to the pres-ent day,
Is it, my child, so hard to say
(De-spite the Scribes' vain-glo-ri-ous boast)
What Pen has in-flu-enced Man the most?

Oliver Herford

Peter Dunne

By the Harp

"Shpeaking of Harps, sure me frind Pete
Has got the Harp of Tara beat,"
Said Mr. Dooley. "Div'l a thing
That boy can't play upon won shtring.
For all the wurrld, to hear him play
You'd think 'twas a whole orchestray.
Great Shtatesmen come from far and near
And shtop their talking, just to hear
Him harp upon the latest kinks
In politics and social jinks.
Niver was such a music sharp,
I'd orter know, sure I'm the Harp."

Oliver Herford

Guglielmo Marconi

I like Marconi best to see
Beneath a Macaroni tree
Playing that Nocturne in F Sharp
By Chopin, on a Wireless Harp.

Oliver Herford