Misc one - Sligo Poets

Sligo Times 22 February 1913
     A MEMORY SYSTEM

Forget each kindness you have done,
      As soon as you have done it,
Forget the praise that falls on you,
      As soon as you have won it;
Forget the slander that you hear
      Before you can repeat it;
Forget each slight, each site, each sneer,
      Where ever you may meet it.

Remember every kindness done
      To you, whate’er its measure,
Remember praise by others won
      And pass it on with pleasure;
Remember every promise made
      And keep it to the letter;
Remember those who lend you aid
      And be a grateful debtor.

Remember all the happiness
      That comes your way in living;
Forget each worry and distress,
      Be hopeful and forgiving;
Remember good, Remember truth,
      Remember heavens above you,
And you will find, through age and youth,
      True joys and hearts to love you.

    Sligo Times 26 July 1913
      Mother’s Apron Strings
         (Nixon Waterman)

When I was but a verdant youth,
   I thought the truly great
Were those who had attained, in truth,
   To man’s mature estate.
And none my soul so badly tried
   Or spoke such bitter things
As he who said that I was tied
   To mother’s apron-strings.

I loved my mother, yet it seemed
   That I must break away
And find the broader world I dreamed
   Beyond her presence lay.
But I have sighed and I have cried
   O’er all the cruel stings
I would have missed had I been tied
   To mother’s apron-strings.

O happy, trustful girls and boys!
   The mother’s way is best.
She leads you ’mid the fairest joys,
   Through paths of peace and rest;
If you would have the safest guide,
   And drink from sweetest springs,
Oh, keep your hearts forever tied
   To mother’s apron-strings.

              Sligo Times 29 March 1913           
           SPEAK GENTLY TO THE ERRING

Speak gently to the erring - ye know not all the power
With which the dark temptation came, in some unguarded hour;
Ye may not know how earnestly they struggled, or how well,
Until the hour of weakness came and sadly thus they fell.

Speak gently of the erring - oh! do not thou forget,
However darkly stained by sin, he is thy brother yet;
Heir of the selfsame heritage, child of the self-same God,
He has but stumbled in the path thou hast in weakness trod.

Speak kindly to the erring for is it not enough
That innocence and peace have gone, without the censure rough?
It surely is a weary lot that sin-stained heart to bear-
And those who share a happier fate, their chidings well may spare.

Speak kindly of the erring, thou yet may'st lead him back
With holy words and tones of love, from misery's thorny track:
Forget thou has often sinned, and sinful yet may be;
Deal gently with the erring one, as God has dealt with thee.

                                                                   LEE.

These five poems are typical motivational poems very common in newspapers of the time. They were often copied one paper from another and the Sligo Times included more of these than the other Sligo newspapers. These are often printed without an author name or with "author unknown". The titles are sometimes changed as are lines and stanza order.

A Memory System seems to have been written by Priscilla Leonard which was the pen name of American writer and campaigner, Emily Bissell. It sometimes has the title Outlook.

I can find no information on Wesley N. Specman given as author of For a Little Bit of Love. There is a hymn by Edwin Othello Excell (1851 – 1921) with a similar title and some similar lines.