264 What Birds Have Done With Me 



values. You want to show me your fat steers 

 and pigs and bursting granaries and long corn- 

 cribs, and perhaps your bonds and mortgages, for 

 which you have exchanged all the days of your 

 lives, and when it's too late to be happy, you are 

 saying, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for 

 many days," and before you have finished the com- 

 placent boast, mean old death is knocking at the 

 door, to tell you that the census taker Time has 

 put you on his list. 



What shall a man get for a wasted life, eye? 

 self-blinded to flowers and waterfalls, rainbows, 

 sunsets, and stars; ears self-stopped to winds and 

 waves, and wild bird music? Oh! brother mine, 

 I have not been able to tell you before, but for a 

 fact, I have stood upon the golden hills of dawn 

 close by your side, and while you have prattled 

 of your vast wealth my heart has been bursting 

 with compassion over your indescribable poverty, 

 only counterfeit dollars that will buy nothing. 

 These fat fellows slap me on the back and ask 

 with well-assumed interest, if I have to engage a 

 lawyer to make out my income-tax schedule. It's 

 one of the best jokes in the world for we both 

 enjoy it equally. They think I have no income and 

 I feel certain that if the hat was passed around 

 in a congregation of church mice, for their bene- 

 fit, the offering should be large. 



Let me see, the unknown pathway first of all 



