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!
As I stood
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._