These things they cast me forth at eventide to bear
With curving sickle over sod and sand;
And no wild tempest drowns me to despair
Nor terror fears me in a barren land.
Perchance somewhere, across the hollow hill,
Or in the thickets in these dreary meads,
Great grapes, uncut, are on the limp vine still,
And waving corn still wears its summer weeds,
Unseen, ungathered in the earlier tide,
When larger summer o'er the earth did glide.
Who knows? Belike from this same sterile path
My harvest hand, heaped with an aftermath,
Shall cast the garner forth before their feet,
Shapely and shaven clean and very sweet.
Thanksgiving to the gods!
Wet with the falling rain,
My face and sides are beaten as with rods,
And soft and sodden is the endless plain.
How long—how long do I endure in vain?
THE LESSON OF PRACTICALITY.
ALMOST any experience, correctly recited, of any person, however unimportant, ought to have some interest; for experience is one of the primary facts of life. This is eminently a writing era, and many persons feel an interest in writing, which is apt to cease after they have adopted it as a profession. One often hears that the inky trade is very pleasant; but the opinion nearly always comes from lay-men. It has, at the outset, its illusions, its allurements, its compensations—other than financial—but these are likely to fade with complete initiation. True, men who have fairly committed themselves to journalism, or authorship, seldom embrace another calling. The reason is that familiarity with ink commonly unfits them for alien pursuits. Their earnings from that may be very small: they might starve at anything else. One is equipped for writing at the expense of every-day practicality. And the longer one writes, the less one is likely to be drilled for the battle of existence.
Many manuscript-makers seem to attach special consequence to their craft: they are fond of talking about it, and glorifying it, as if it were rare, precious, ideal. I am wholly unable to share this prejudice. Manuscript-making is hard, precarious, ill paid: it may be regarded in the main as an unfortunate occupation, and, as such, entitled to some degree of sympathy, but not otherwise. I cannot see wherein it differs, as an employment, from practising law, keeping accounts, or selling groceries, except that these are less unprofitable.
