In Heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
“What did you do?”
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind,
Ashamed.
Presently, God said,
“And what did you do?”
The little blade answered, “Oh, my Lord,
Memory is bitter to me,
For, if I did good deeds,
I know not of them.”
Then God, in all his splendor,
Arose from his throne.
“Oh, best little blade of grass!” he said.
_Edwin Ford Piper_
Edwin Ford Piper was born at Auburn, Nebraska, February 8, 1871, and
literally grew up in the saddle. In 1893 he entered the University
of Nebraska, from which he received an A.B. in 1897 and A.M. in
1900. He studied at Harvard (1903–4), was one of the editors of _The
Kiote_ (a magazine published from 1898 to 1902 in Lincoln,
Nebraska), and, since 1905, has been an instructor of English at the
State University of Iowa.
_Piper’s Barbed Wire and Other Poems_ (1918) is saturated with the
color of his environment. His later poems are still more vivid and
racy. “Sweetgrass Range” (with its self-acknowledged debt to Burns’s
“Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie”) and “Bindlestiff” are fresh evidences of
this author’s creative interest in ballads and folk-lore.