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Helena Coleman
LURED by the golden glamor of the West,
He crossed the pathless plains and scaled the bold
Titanic forms that, rising fold on fold,
Touch heaven's blue; and, toiling, strove to wrest
From Nature's rugged and reluctant breast
The treasure she had hidden there of old —
The treasure of her hoarded yellow gold —
Seductive hope of many a hapless quest!
For this he left all other hopes behind,
And gave his manhood's prime and powers away,
Content to be forgotten of his kind —
Yet all the while within himself there lay
The unregarded treasure of the mind,
Deep-buried, priceless, wasting day by day.
So rich a treasure in yourself you bring,
That some is spilt and wasted on the way,
As low clouds, halting, on wild seas astray,
Cheat the thick, thirsty blossoms of the spring.
And some I waste. But in our later years
We shall remember how, too prodigal,
We let the precious drops of honey fall,
And pay for them at last with useless tears.
Ah, waste, waste, waste ! However much there is,
There's not too much for bare and mortal days,
That now, receding in youth's golden haze,
Seem dim but ever full eternities.
But there's an end ! Take heed, lest you and I
Have wasted wealth to think on when we die.
I had no objection at all
To selling my household effects at auction
On the village square.
It gave my beloved flock the chance
To get something which had belonged to me
For a memorial.
But that trunk which was struck off
To Burchard, the grog-keeper!
Did you know it contained the manuscripts
Of a lifetime of sermons?
And he burned them as waste paper.
I bought every kind of machine that’s known—
Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers,
Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers—
And all of them stood in the rain and sun,
Getting rusted, warped and battered,
For I had no sheds to store them in,
And no use for most of them.
And toward the last, when I thought it over,
There by my window, growing clearer
About myself, as my pulse slowed down,
And looked at one of the mills I bought—
Which I didn’t have the slightest need of,
As things turned out, and I never ran—
A fine machine, once brightly varnished,
And eager to do its work,
Now with its paint washed off—