Old Things
I like old things that time has tried
And proven strong and good and fine;
Rose-petal softness of old sheets;
Old pottery of quaint design;
Old trees that stand against the wind,
However gnarled their branches are,
Symbolic of a soul grown strong,
Communing years with storm and star;
Old houses marked by hours
Of love and living through the years,
That proudly bear their stamp of worth
In spite of strife and stress and tears;
Old faces time has etched with lines
Of love and laughter, sorrow, too.
I like old things -- they have a depth
Unknown by anything that's new.
Cora Mae Preble
Enjoy!
Elizabeth
And proven strong and good and fine;
Rose-petal softness of old sheets;
Old pottery of quaint design;
Old trees that stand against the wind,
However gnarled their branches are,
Symbolic of a soul grown strong,
Communing years with storm and star;
Old houses marked by hours
Of love and living through the years,
That proudly bear their stamp of worth
In spite of strife and stress and tears;
Old faces time has etched with lines
Of love and laughter, sorrow, too.
I like old things -- they have a depth
Unknown by anything that's new.
Cora Mae Preble
Enjoy!
Elizabeth
6 comments:
I'm glad you liked this poem, Mrs. Blythe. I found it in an old cookbook, of all things.
Elizabeth
Do you know anything about the author?
I don't know anything about the author. I tried looking her up on the Internet, but I couldn't find out anything about her.
I had this on an old cloth calendar that hung on my kitchen door with a picture of an old covered bridge, I never forgot it. Sorry I didn't keep it, back in 1965
Patricia, thanks for commenting. I put this poem in my blog to remember it, but I hadn't looked back at it and had actually forgotten it! I need to print it out and put it in my scrapbook of poems and verses and things I want to remember. I'm sure your cloth calender was beautiful; my family used to have cloth calenders when I was young. This makes me think that the poem would be lovely cross-stitched or stamped on cloth or in some other way preserved on one of my walls.
Happy New Year
There is some info about Cora at the following ancestry link.
http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=allgs&gsfn=Cora%20Mae&gsln=Preble&gss=seo&ghc=20
I've been trying to find out about her for many years. That poem has supreme significance from my youth. During an excruciatingly difficult time, I took refuge in staring at it on our kitchen wall and memorizing it, hoping to escape to the barn in the picture, to the past, to anywhere else. According to the info in the link, she was born in Maine in 1910 and passed away in 1976. I would love to connect with one of her children, if she had any, and thank them for what Cora wrote. There is no other info avail on her, so I'm guessing she was a part-time poet who sold that verse to a cookbook company at some point for a few bucks. I personally think it is worth millions. If I find out more about dear Cora, I shall post it here. Thanks to all at A Merry Rose.
-Larry
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