Life, 1917-04-05 · page 27 of 70
Life — April 5, 1917 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a philosophical poem critiquing modern society's inability to recognize its own cultural achievements. "The Deathless Age" argues that ordinary people—laborers, cobblers—live too immersed in daily drudgery to appreciate the era's greatness. The poem suggests future generations will admire what we dismiss today, just as the Greeks unknowingly built immortal works. The accompanying photograph shows a wedding scene at what appears to be a church entrance, captioned with a "Startled Groom" dialogue where the groom identifies himself as "the patron saint of New York." This appears satirical—juxtaposing an ordinary wedding with grandiose self-importance. The small cartoon "Willie's Idea of a Germ" offers comic relief. The page's core message: modernity's cynicism and materialism (telephone, airplane, stock exchange) blind us to genuine human values—the sacrifice and art transcending commercial life. We cannot see the sacred within our own time.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Deathless Age HIS deathless age we live in! We shall never See its full glory or its far-flung fame. We live too close to all its roughness, ever! Our eyes are blinded by some tran- sient shame. do not above its muddy trenches, We toilers in its turgid atmosphere ; Lil cobblers cramped upon their grimy benches, We dwell in shadows, not in sun- light clear. We see Greeks dreamed not the forms they built were deathless ; They builded far, far better t knew. in future years, oh, many will stand The n they breathless, The ancient beauties of to-day on view. We talk of Art as something long de- parted, And Man as of some creature in de- cay; judge our wonder-deeds praise half-hearted, And brush their greatness cynically We with We do not sce that Art is ever spring ing Up from the earth in forms quite new and strange; Our ears are dulled by clang of ham- mers ringing, And shouts of brokers on the great Exchange. WILLIE’S IDEA OF A GERM Startled Groom: “1 AM THE PATRON What instrument is this? I hear one saying. A telephone? that Art. A biplane poised in air above is sway- ing: Material things, we think, that have no heart. No man would call Yet men lay down their lives with smil- ing faces, In numbers yet undreamed of—and for what? AND WHO ARE You? SAINT OF NEW YORK" That others may step in to fill their places And die like them upon the selfsame spot? Not for this! For something deep, undying, For something mortal eyes can never No! see. for God or lying With sightless eyes—is it for Me or Thee? Is it Art that men are Ks.com comichoo!