SIMON bent to his hissing saw,

Simon the chopper gnarled and tough,

All the years, till his hands were rough

As the clumsy shape of a bruin's paw,

Knotted and big with his labor long,

Yet sure in the work that made them strong.

Snarling with curse for his hairy throat,

Poverty feared his strong, rough grasp,

Sick with rage at the saw's bright hasp

That flashed with howl and cut with gloat.

The mother of death and a merciless fate,

She filled his life with the gloom of hate.

Yet his heart strives upward to his tongue

Incomplete in shreds of song

To help his heavy days along

Through life with mental clouds o'erhung.

Harsh as the saw the tunes depart,

Half-made and dull from the singer's heart.

II

Simon the sage worked night and day,

Simon the chopper wise and true;

Only his song to help him through,

And only his whistle to turn away

The endless gloom of a lowly place,

And the dreary tedium from his face.

His gleaming axe gives up to the light

Hearts of stubborn sticks and blocks—

A century maple or birch unlocks

Its fibres gathered through day and night;

And he marks it all with his ancient lore

As he reads the secret of bark and core.

In forest lore is Simon wise:

The beech that ripens on the hill,

The oak a century cannot kill,

Are well-read books before his eyes;

A forest beneath his axe has turned

In the fifty years his blade has burned.

He speaks and knows as a wise man knows,

Gathering together with dulling sense

The labor's grudging recompense,

Thoughtful and patient as wisdom grows.

He drifts away from the walks of men,

In a field where he alone has ken.

III

Simon the digger delves in the earth,

Preparing a pillow for weary head,

For tired limbs and heart a bed,—

Young, or gray, or dumb at birth,

He makes all ready with prelude dirge,

With careless foot on his own dark verge.

Like the book recording the village birth,

Fifty years he has kept the file

Of all defunct,—and who meanwhile

May soon desire a strip of earth

Are clearly writ—and the ancient book

Has stamped a gloom upon his look.

And he often grappled with death in the grave,

While Time stood by whetting his scythe.

Water may drip, and worms may writhe,

And the coffin will soon leave the chapel-nave:—

Who mourn the dead, as who soon forget,

Look into the grave, unburied yet.

First to come and last to go,

Simon waits on a fallen stone;

No tear, no fear, though he work alone

To make a grave where weeds may grow.

He fingers the sod with a tender care

As if part of the body resting there.

IV

Seasons have furrowed his features deep,

Bark-like and grim as the axe's food—

His days have grown slow with the growing wood—

Furrows that never smile or weep.

Axe and spade turn light away,

He labors in gloom at bright midday.

Seventy years of months and days

Weigh on his head and bend him down;

His brow with thought has become a frown.

Seldom a smile o'er his wrinkles plays,

For his labor makes him a gloomy lore;

Forgetting no face he has covered o'er.

V

Problems of living are hard to learn;

The duty is clear, reward but a hope;

Philosophy fails beyond life's dark scope.

The sage is the digger whose dawns return

That he drag the lingering minutes away—

There is no day but the present day.

What work is well when thrust to a close?

Wisdom foretells no hidden good;

Suffering follows the hardihood

Of plunging thus into future woes.

Living, alone, can quench distress;

The moment seized is the one to bless.

Poverty near, and death at his heels,

Simon is rich in the wealth of years;

Working for bread, without joy, without tears,

Till the changeless calm will gently steal

Across his face and will silence his song.

Where riches are equal his rest will be long.