Newspaper History presents media sourced from a United States newspaper dating back 108 years.

  • A Pastoral Tragedy

    From The Birmingham Age-Herald, January 4, 1913.
     
    
     The passionate shepherd
         His lot doth lament;
     Sweet Phyllida left him—
         One morning she went.
     
     Some say ’twas an actor
         Who led her astray,
     And some say a chauffeur
         Upon the “White Way.”
     
     Alone on the hillside
         The desolate swain
     Sheds tears of deep sorrow
         That shower like rain.
     
     His pipe is neglected,
         He singeth no more,
     His flock is a-straying
         The wide country o’er.
     
     She spoke of his manners
         As boorish and rude,
     When she would a lover
         With polish endued.
     
     Then shortly she left him,
         The hard-hearted girl;
     Grown tired of day-dreaming,
         She longed for a whirl.
     
     A Shepard, she knew it,
         Saw little of life;
     She’d be in the swim as
         An actor-man’s wife.
     
     Or was it a chauffeur?
         We really can’t say,
     But sad is the shepherd
         Since she went away.