THE UNDERTAKER
WHEN life is done—this life that galls and frets us, this life so full of tears and doubts and dreads—the undertaker comes along and gets us, and tucks us neatly in our little beds. When we are done with toiling, hoarding, giving, when we are done with drawing checks and breath, he comes to show us that the cost of living cuts little ice beside the cost of death. I meet him daily in the street or alley, a cheerful man, he dances and he sings; and we exchange the buoyant jest and sally, and ne’er discourse of grim, unpleasant things. We talk of crops, the campaign and the weather, the I. and R., the trusts—this nation’s curse; no graveyard hints while we converse together, no reference to joyrides in a hearse. And yet I feel—perchance it is a blunder—that as I stand there, rugged, hale and strong, he’d like to ask me: “Comrade, why in thunder and other things, do you hang on so long?” When I complain of how the asthma tightens upon my lungs, and makes me feel a wreck, it seems to me his face with rapture lightens, smiles stretch his lips and wind around his neck. And when I say I’m feeling like a heifer turned out to grass, or like a hummingbird, he heaves a sigh as gentle as a zephyr, yet fraught with pain and grief and hope deferred.
GARDEN OF DREAMS
IN the garden of dreams let me rest, far, far from the laboring throng, from the moans of the tired and distressed, from the strains of the conqueror’s song. As a native of Bagdad, or Turk, I’d live in Arabian nights, away from the regions of work, from troubles and hollow delights. In the garden of dreams I would stray, and bother my fat head no more, a-wondering how I shall pay for groceries bought at the store. Ah, there in that garden I’d sit, communing in peace with my soul, and never again have a fit when handed the bill for the coal. In the garden of dreams I’d recline and soar on the wings of romance, forgetting this old hat of mine, the patches all over my pants, the clamor of children for shoes, the hausfrau’s demands for a gown, the lodge’s exorbitant dues, the polltax to work in the town. Alas! It is as I supposed—there is no escaping my fate, for the garden of dreams has been closed, a padlock is fixed on the gate. The young, who are buoyant and glad, may enter that garden, it seems; but the old, who are weary and sad, are warned from the garden of dreams!
CLOUDS
IF every day was sunny, with ne’er a cloud in view, we’d soon be spending money to buy a cloud or two. It always makes me weary when people say: “Old boy, may all your days be cheery and bright and full of joy!” If all my days were sunny, existence would seem flat; if I were fed on honey I’d soon get sick of that. I like a slice of sorrow to hold me down today, for that will make tomorrow seem fifty times as gay. A little dose of sickness won’t make me whine or yell; ’twill emphasize the slickness of life when I am well. A little siege of trouble won’t put my hopes in pawn, for I’ll be trotting double with joy when it is gone. Down there in tropic regions where sunshine gleams all day, the fat and lazy legions just sleep their lives away; there every idle bumpkin who in the sunshine lies, lives like a yellow pumpkin, and like a squash he dies. I want my share of changes, my share of ups and downs; I want a life that ranges from crosses up to crowns.