Carriers' Annual Address, Harrisburg Daily Patriot, 1879

See the full version (above), top half, and bottom half.

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Carriers' Annual Address to the Patrons of the Harrisburg Daily Patriot, Wednesday, January 1, 1879

Headline of newspaper in illustration: "A Happy New Year."

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Carriers' Address

A year has closed a circle again
That ne'er can be broken by power of men;
so list to a song of its woe and its cheer,
A song of the sad, glad, dead old year,
'Tis the carriers' song, the carriers true
Who've served you the news the whole year through.

Oh, we are the carriers, ready and swift!
We whistle right merrily all the way.
As, bringing the latest news from the world,
We hurry along in the morning gray.

Oh, what cared we for the springtime fair,
The budding trees and its opening flowers!
Oh, what cared we for its sunshine sweet,
Or its smirching mud and its drenching showers!

The Turk had been crushed by the Czar's bold hosts,
And peace would now reign in lands over the sea;
In Congress, to keep peace all Europe would meet;
--And we carried the news of these great things to be.

Then William the good king of Prussia was shot--
We must carry the news--all Prussia was stirred.
Then Mercedes died, the sweet Spanish queen,
And from Spain the voice of sorrow was heard.

Soon all in the cool, the sweet-scented shade
Of the fresh summer morning we hurried along,
Ere yet the fierce heat of the day had shone out,
While caroled each bird his blithest, best song.

But no time to enjoy these, for up from the South
The voice of the fever-struck, praying, had come
For help from the North in their day of distress,
And we carried the prayer into each northern home.

And then in the hazy, beautiful morn,
All tinted with shades of the gold autumn days,
We saw o'er the trees decked in numberless hues,
The round, rising sun in its first glory blaze.

But we cared not, we cared not for beauty of earth,
For out on the pitiless, treacherous deep
A shipload of lives had gone down in the night,
And we bore the sad news that caused many to weep.

Oh, cold, oh cold was the winter's wild blast,
And blinding and thick was the hard-blowing snow!
What cared we, what cared we for winter so drear!
Let the snow drift deep and the cold winds blow!

We carried the news of another ship lost--
The news of the day Congress opened its doors--
Of Beaconsfield's speech--the campaign in the East--
The heralds of "wars and rumors of wars."

And now on our rounds the whole round year
We've tirelessly traveled. To some have been sad
The tidings we've brought, but as well have we brought
The news that has made full many hearts glad.

If the news that we faithfully lay at your doors
Make sad hearts or glad hearts, we can never say;
And we never would know. We travel our rounds
And whistle right merrily all the way.