A FRAGMENT
HOW hardly doth the cold and careless world
Requite the toil divine of genius-souls,
Their wasting cares and agonizing throes!
I had a friend, a sweet and precious friend,
One passing rich in all the strange and rare,
And fearful gifts of song.
On one great work,
A poem in twelve cantos, she had toiled
From early girlhood, e’en till she became
An olden maid.
Worn with intensest thought,
She sunk at last—just at the “finis” sunk!—
And closed her eyes for ever! The soul-gem
Had fretted through its casket!
Beside her tomb, I made a solemn vow
To take in charge that poor, lone orphan work,
And edit it!
My publisher I sought,
A learned man and good. He took the work,
Read here and there a line, then laid it down,
And said, “It would not pay.” I slowly turned,
And went my way with troubled brow, “but more
In sorrow than in anger.”
Grace Greenwood.