The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter/The Seeking of Content
THE SEEKING OF CONTENT
Sweet Content, at the rich man's gate,
Called, “Wilt thou let me in?”
“No! thou art poor and thou art not great,
Hast nothing thy way to win.
Here love is little and mighty is power;
Fate may change in a wayward hour,
A monarch's heart may grow weary of thought.
What if his gold-bringing bees be caught,
Or wake to the fact of their sting?
He has all to lose, if nothing to gain,
And his throne doth lean for support in the main
On the different minds that have crowned him king
In their summer of thinking: so, sorrow
And winter may come with the morrow.”
Sweet Content, at the poor man's door.
Called, “May I enter here?”
“No! we bees of the golden store
Are smothered with cold and fear.
We rise ere the sun to delve and moil.
We give our eyes with the midnight oil,
Till the sight burns dim, till the wick's no more.
To buy our masters a coach-and-four,
To spatter us with the mire.
If nothing to lose, we have all to win,
To a heart's despair sin scarce seems sin—
When hope dies out, maybe crime steals in.
And patience may sometime grow sick and tire.
The wearied bee may die on the wing,
Or—God has given to each his sting.”
Sweet Content, at Death's black gates,
Called, “Wilt thou take me in?”
“Enter into the home of peace,
Close my gates on good and sin.
Shut on the poor man's rags my door,
Shut on the rich man's coach-and-four.
Nothing had man when life gave him breath.
Nothing he takes past the gates of death
Of the world's unequal paying.
Save only the joys he fought self to resign.
Only the sorrows, he did not repine.
The sins that he stooped for, or passed, and Divine
Is the justice that judges the weighing.
What better reward for a tired life spent,
Than thee for his bride, Content?”