Lovers Offline

“Lovers Offline”

Anonymous, Telegraphic Journal, January 15, 1875.

(written by a telegraph clerk on the back of a message form)

In times that are over, full many a lover

Was won by the power of electrical fire;

There was working; then sporting -- conversing, then courting,

And letters by post followed wooing by wire.

Telegraph Vignette uncredited from
A Brief History of Communications
by IEEE Communications Society, 2002. 

The couples then mated are closer related,
And many a one who was helped in his work,

By patience, attention, and care beyond mention,

Has found a kind helpmeet in his fellow clerk.

But, now, things are changing, stern rules are estranging

The workers, and striving all likings to baulk;

Lest people should choose them, and Government lose them,

"The Staff, on the wires, are forbidden to talk!"

Odd moments of leisure, once given to pleasure,

Are spent in dull idleness through the day;

And kept thus asunder, can anyone wonder

If patience, at times quite exhausted, gives way?

It is so annoying, one might be enjoying

The cosiest chat with the nicest of friends;

But there's always the fear now that somebody's near now,

And "taking us down from the slip" at both ends.

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