Uncle Walt [Walt Mason], the Poet PhilosopherMason, Walt
General
Uncle Walt [Walt Mason], the Poet Philosopher
Mason, Walt
Poetry
Now the long, long day is fading, and the hush of dusk is here, and the
stars begin parading, each one in its distant sphere; and the city's
strident voices dwindle to a gentle hum, and the heart of man rejoices
that the hour of rest has come. Thrown away is labor's fetter, when the
day has reached its close; nothing in the world is better than a weary
man's repose. Nothing in the world is sweeter than the sleep the toiler
finds, while the ravening moskeeter fusses at the window blinds. Nothing
'neath the moon can wake him, short of cannon cracker's roar; if you'd
rouse him you must shake him till you dump him on the floor. Idle people
seek their couches, seek their beds to toss and weep, for a demon on
them crouches, driving from their eyes the sleep. And the weary hours
they number, and they cry, in tones distraught: "For a little wad of
slumber, I would give a house and lot!" When the long, long day is
dying, and you watch the twinkling stars, knowing that you'll soon be
lying, sleeping like a train of cars, be, then, thankful, without
measure; be as thankful as you can; you have nailed as great a treasure
as the gods have given man!
_Tomorrow_
"Tomorrow," said the languid man, "I'll have my life insured, I guess; I
know it is the safest plan, to save my children from distress." And when
the morrow came around, they placed him gently in a box; at break of
morning he was found as dead as Julius Caesar's ox. His widow now is
scrubbing floors, and washing shirts, and splitting wood, and doing
fifty other chores, that she may rear her wailing brood. "Tomorrow,"
said the careless jay, "I'll take an hour, and make my will; and then if
I should pass away, the wife and kids will know no ill." The morrow
came, serene and nice, the weather mild, with signs of rain; the
careless jay was placed on ice, embalming fluid in his brain. Alas,
alas, poor careless jay! The lawyers got his pile of cash; his wife is
toiling night and day, to keep the kids in clothes and hash. Tomorrow is
the ambushed walk avoided by the circumspect. Tomorrow is the fatal rock
on which a million ships are wrecked.
_Toothache_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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