1941 v. 1841

> I would not die in winter, When flowers have passed away; But I would sigh my last sigh, In the pleasant month of May.

> Ok! I want to go to Heaven in an old Ford car,

But the gosh darned thing won't go that far.

Oh! I want to go to Heaven and I want to go right

So I'm going to Heaven on the tail of a kite.

The difference between these two poems is just one century. The first dates from 1841. Published last week was an anthology of poems, stories and art work by New York City school children, called Moments of Enchantment, a companion piece to a similar anthology published just 100 years ago. The stunt was staged by Associate School Superintendent Elias Lieberman, head of the junior high schools, who had happened on the 1841 collection, called The Pet Annual.

Dr. Lieberman found that 19th-Century youngsters were prone to ponder morosely on such subjects as Hypocrisy, Temptation, Time, Death. Their poetic style, though reflective and unhurried, was stiff, conventional, smacked of grown-up inspiration. Far from conventional were the poems that Dr. Lieberman collected from classrooms of his pupils (aged 12 to 16) for the 1941 anthology.

Sample comparison of the 1841 and 1941 vintages:

1841

All hail! sweet Spring thou comest

Laden with joy and mirth,

And on thy wings thou dearest

The choicest flowers of earth. . . .

1941

Icicles and bicycles.

Are such a pretty rhyme,

Though one belongs to winter,

And one to summertime.

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