Pittsburgh Sidelights
May 1954
Pages 16 and 17
Pittsburgh’s Porter Poet
Sea Going Poet probes People
In All Walks of Life
It is pretty well agreed that the Irish have the gift of phrase, the art of conversational wit, and the habit of expressing themselves in clear and vital terms. This is no less true of porter Robert Lee, porter on the Pittsburgh steamer Ralph H. Watson, and sailor poet who has three volumes of poetry published under the titles “Halos are Heavy,” “Cracked Armor,” and “The Ragged Edge.”
Robert Lee is of an Irish origin, “more Irish than the Irish themselves. “His mother was a Lee of the Lees of Tralee, a family that followed the Stuarts and fled into exile, defying the persistence of Queen Elizabeth and surviving the violence of Cromwell. Along with Shaw and Joyce and other Irish writers, Lee has an alarming insight into people. a total way of measuring them that strips away their coverings and leaves them bare before his analysis. His pen denounces sham and hypocrisy, but in laying open human beings to expose their weakness, he is also forced to expose their goodness.
Lee is beginning his second year with Pittsburgh Steamship division. A veteran of several years’ service in the U.S. Navy where he served as ship’s cook, he lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
The poetry of Robert Lee is entertaining. With his tongue in his cheek, he mirrors life through individual people, laughing sometimes at them, often with them. But one of his poetry’s greatest chams is its virility; for poetry can be vital and masculine. It can describe man’s feelings in a way that his conversation, his letters or even his music cannot.
RobertLee understands this use of poetry and he uses it forcefully.
Poems…..by Robert Lee
Molly Malone
It was a hard world to face
With Dennis gone
And five young mouths to feed
But God was good;
He gave me two strong arms—
And a washtub!
Callie Flath
I was eighteen the year I married
Ebenezer Flath,
Stolid and fat,
Going on forty,
A pillar of the church
And a prop in the First National
A thorough Christian gentleman
And one of our better citizens,
A perfect father
Abd a kind and loving husband
But, reader,
I did not die of liver trouble
(As old Doctor Jenkins said),
It was
Boredom!
Miss Dalrymple
Miss Dalrymple, the socialite,
Is very proud of her
Ancestors.
And why shouldn’t she be?
They stopped swinging by their
Tails
Several aeons ago
And have been struggling ever since
To produce
A flowering progeny
As glamorous
As
Miss Dalrymple.
Lavina Abernathy
Heaven is where we find it
To some, it may be around the corner,
And to others, beyond the stars.
It may be in a bit of heather
From the purple hills of home—
Or in the soft trembling of the heart.
And this I know—
As surely as God above and earth
below,
There is a wee bit of the beauty of
Heaven
In a tear shed in secret.
And all of the little silver bells of it
Ring
When a prayer is murmured in the
Deep silence of the night.
Old Mother
Do not weep, old Mother,
As the willow weeps beside the stilled
Waters
The bitter wind but ruffles the surface
The depths are as calm as the eyes of a woman
Drunk with love.
Do not weep, old Mother,
Still will be the drifting leaves,
The swallows’ flight across the dormant
hills.
Again will come the miracle of spring.
The cooing doves and love made tender.
Do not weep, old Mother,
Although sorrow binds thee.
The taunting laugher of the Gods
Is in the wind as it scatters
The dust of mortals and their deeds
Into oblivion—
Do not weep old Mother,
Their blessings rest upon thy head
As softly as almond blossoms fall
From the bended bough
In the stillness of the blue night.
Pittsburgh Sidelights
October 1956
More of Robert Lee
Pittsburgh Steamship’s porter-poet Robert Lee on the Steamer J. Pierpont Morgan has set his Irish wit to work again and submits the following verses to Sidelights for the critical evaluation and enjoyment of his shipmates in the fleet.
Movie Extra
I do not have a pretty face,
Or move about with lovely grace,
I know I cannot be a star,
But I can envy those who are.
Retaliation
If I were a king for a little while,
Fortune upon my friends would smile,
But don’t be confused or be misled,
The lions, too, would be well fed.
In a Beauty Salon
Of course, I know the lines are there,
The years have given me my share,
But kindly leave them where they are,
You cannot buy them in a jar!
Warning
Beware of the little things that men pass by,
There is more to them than meets the eye,
It may be an idle word, a casual glance.
All things depend on time and chance.
A Woman’s Heart
The wind cannot be snared in a golden net,
Or a wild thing caged and made a pet.
Fools may judge and the critics stone,
But a wise man leaves a heart alone.
Prayer Rug
Pittsburgh Sidelights
July 1958, page 10
I sit and contemplate this rug of prayer
Intricately patterned into a perfect whole;
Designed with every skill and care
To please alike both eye and soul.
The splendor of the day and of the night
Are both imprisoned here in silken web.
Age has but dimmed its colors bright
And added beauty to each slender thread.
As music lends enchantment to a fast
Beauty alone is born anew with age.
Here lies the dormant art craft of the East
That glows like holy words upon a faded page.
There are many devious ways in which to pray;
They pray who weave this beauty
I behold
Who toil their long and weary days away
Interlacing each with threads of gold.
Robert Lee, Stmr. A.H. Ferbert
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