Let the downpour roil and toil!
The worst it can do to me
Is carry some garden soil
A little nearer the sea.
’Tis the world-old way of the rain
When it comes to a mountain farm
To exact for a present gain
A little of future harm.
And the harm is none too sure,
For when all that was rotted rich
Shall be in the end scoured poor,
When my garden has gone down ditch,
Some force has but to apply,
And summits shall be immersed,
The bottom of seas raised dry—
The slope of the earth reversed.
Then all I need do is run
To the other end of the slope,
And on tracts laid new to the sun,
Begin all over to hope.
Some worn old tool of my own
Will be turned up by the plow,
The wood of it changed to stone,
But as ready to wield as now.
May my application so close
To so endless a repetition
Not make me tired and morose
And resentful of man’s condition.