make me well not trying to be dull. I'm as tired seeing you try to write as I'd be seeing you trying not to write. I want you to quit. I want you to get where you couldn't sell if there was a buyer and where no one else could buy if there was a seller. I want to see you who have been in verbal bond set spirit free. I want to see you who have given up all the life you know for words willing to give up every word you know for life. You writers who are trying to write. Every seed counts in the harvest: In the harvests of orchards and fields: in the harvests of bodies and souls: In the harvests of the topless years: in the harvests of the bottomless spaces: In the harvests of cruelty and war: in the harvests of fires and frosts: In the harvests we win in our love: in the harvests we lose in our hate: In the harvests that are swept into graves: in the harvests that finish before they begin: There is no better or worse in the harvests: all counts for all in all: Every seed counts in the harvest. ALL THE ENGINEERS PERISHED All the engineers perished. The ship went down. Some were saved. Some were lost. The rich were mostly saved. The poor were mostly lost. But the engineers: they all drowned. They all stuck to their posts. Not one of them lived to tell how the rest died. They had no chance to tell the world about each other. How heroic they were. How they nonchalantly smoked their pipes as they stood waist deep in water. How they cracked jokes to the last. They just stayed below. They took their medicine. They may have squealed. God knows. But they didn't run. They kept the lights burning as long as their hearts kept beating. Who has told their story? Let me tell it. While you are busy with the somebodies let me speak of the nobodies. While you are celebrating the people with names let me celebrate the people who have no names. While you are trying to estimate how much money went down in the cabin let me try to figure how much manhood went down in the engine room. While you are counting up the gods who are not men let me count up the men who are gods. It may be easy to die with the band playing and the world looking on. But to die in the stillness with no one looking on may be a bit more solemn. I'm not against dying. Dying has its points. Dying may be the surest way to life. Nor am I against living. Living too has things to be said for it. Living may be the noblest way to death. But I want to say things about these men and boys I never saw. I want to say things about all the men and boys I have never seen. The world over, everywhere, yellow or black or white; the men and boys. I want to call the attention of forgetful people to the crowd. The crowd itself forgets the crowd. It was sad to have the crew die. It was sad to have the steerage bunch die locked in a hole. But that wasn't half as sad as to have the crowd on shore more