Ah, Judy, thank you! Thank you! By following a link to Julia A. Moore (The Sweet Singer of Michigan) in the Guardian's story about bad poetry, I was reunited with 'Ashtabula Disaster,' which one of my teachers assured me was the worst poem ever written in English. It's been half
a century since I read it last. Judith Evans wrote:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2182129,00.html
Link: http://www.wmich.edu/english/txt/Moore/Ashtabula.html ASHTABULA DISASTER by Julia A. Moore AIR -- "Gently Down the Stream of Time" Have you heard of the dreadful fate Of Mr. P. P. Bliss and wife? Of their death I will relate, And also others lost their life; Ashtabula Bridge disaster, Where so many people died Without a thought that destruction Would plunge them 'neath the wheel of tide. CHORUS: Swiftly passed the engine's call, Hastening souls on to death, Warning not one of them all; It brought despair right and left. Among the ruins are many friends, Crushed to death amidst the roar; On one thread all may depend, And hope they've reached the other shore. P. P. Bliss showed great devotion To his faithful wife, his pride, When he saw that she must perish, He died a martyr by her side. P. P. Bliss went home above -- Left all friends, earth and fame, To rest in God's holy love; Left on earth his work and name. The people love his work by numbers, It is read by great and small, He by it will be remembered, He has left it for us all. His good name from time to time Will rise on land and sea; It is known in distant climes, Let it echo wide and free. One good man among the number, Found sweet rest in a short time, His weary soul may sweetly slumber Within the vale, heaven sublime. Destruction lay on every side, Confusion, fire and despair; No help, no hope, so they died, Two hundred people over there. Many ties was there broken, Many a heart was filled with pain, Each one left a little token, For above they live again. --------------------------------'The poem commemorates an accident in which 92 people were killed near Ashtabula, Ohio, on December 29, 1876, when the No. 5 train of the Lake Shore and Michigan Railroad was heading west, 1,000 feet east of the Ashtabula train station when it broke through the iron bridge that spanned the Ashtabula River and plunged into a chasm 70 feet deep.'
-------------------------------- Robert Paul Professor of the Unknown Mutton College ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
