I had in my possession an old family Bible, given to me for safekeeping almost twenty years ago. On the flyleaf is an inscription in almost fading black ink, its flowing cursive lines are testimony to an age when penmanship was considered of great importance. It is a simple dedication made out to my maternal grandmother from her aunt and dated June 26th 1913.
To be honest I had never really looked at the Bible much – I have one of my own of more recent vintage – and what’s more it was tied in an old handkerchief that has grown a pale yellow although it has retained its resilience. I thought it was time to pass it on to a family member who still carries my mother’s family name.
However, before I sent the Bible on to the next generation, I decided to look inside and within its secret pages I found some sheets from an old exercise book on which were written nine – I CORRECT MYSELF THERE WERE TEN – perfect little poems. Two of the pages have been eaten by time and so some of the words are lost. The handwriting is not familiar, it doesn’t belong to my mother and nor do I believe the pages are old enough to belong to my grandmother. Inside the Bible was also an Easter card addressed to my mother from my paternal grandaunt, who had never married. However, the handwriting in the poems doesn’t look as though it’s my grandaunt’s either.
So who wrote these poems? Are they verses written by some other poets and merely copied by the writer onto the exercise book sheets? Or were they written by some unsung unheard of poet in my family’s past, on either my mother’s or my father’s side.
I plan to list some of these poems here, so if anyone in the world – who visits this site and recognises the lines as belonging to another poet – do please leave a comment. If not, I think it’s time the Anonymous Poet of the 1913 Bible gets some appreciation.
The Poems found in an old family Bible
The little things
Be careful of the little things you do
For often times they echo back to you
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