Do not let the will play gardener to your soul. Unless you are sure, it is wiser than your soul’s nature.
Tag: Edgar Lee Masters
God! ask me not to record your wonders,
I admit the stars and the suns
And the countless worlds.
But I have measured their distances
And weighed them and discovered their substances.
I have devised wings for the air,
And keels for water,
And horses of iron for the earth.
I have lengthened the vision you gave me a million times,
And the hearing you gave me a million times,
I have leaped over space with speech,
And taken fire for light out of the air.
I have built great cities and bored through the hills,
And bridged majestic waters.
I have written the Iliad and Hamlet;
And I have explored your mysteries,
And searched for you without ceasing,
And found you again after losing you
In hours of weariness—
And I ask you:
How would you like to create a sun
And the next day have the worms
Slipping in and out between your fingers?
I owe whatever I was in life to your hope that would not give me up, to your love that saw me still as good.
Suppose a boy steals an apple from the tray at the grocery store, and they all begin to call him a thief, the editor, minister, judge, and all the people — “a thief,” “a thief,” “a thief,” wherever he goes. And he can’t get work, and he can’t get bread without stealing it, why, the boy will steal it. It’s the way people regard the theft of the apple that makes the boy what he is.