H poet ot tbe poor 



I have followed with absolute impatience 

 the labored efforts of learned dry-as-dusts 

 to reconstruct the bucolics of Theocritus. 

 Here are these fellows wrangling, guessing, 

 suggesting, rejecting, contending, strain- 

 ing at verbal gnats, and dissecting con- 

 jectural substitutes for knotty phrases, 

 when, in fact, the pastorals are perfect. 

 How they go into a poor man's heart, 

 those old echoes of the Sicilian mountain- 

 sides and of the vineyards and orchards 

 of Cos! Even that much-mutilated Idyl 

 XXI comes to me sometimes when the 

 cares of work and the difficulties of life 

 drive away sleep: 



Poverty, Diophantes, makes art leap to life ; 

 Poverty enforces work ; for even at night 

 The toiler's sleep is broken by his cares, 

 And if he touch the outer fringe of rest 

 To-morrow's task will rob him of his nap. 



I can Imagine two old fishermen, in their 

 rush-wattled hut by the seaside, reading 

 that story of their poor lives. I have been 

 in such a hut on an island of the Southern 

 Gulf-coast, and have slept on the fisher- 

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