Bequeathed to me are quill and quine,

a thousand hillsides’ worth.

No greater gesture could, for mine,

elicit thanks, henceforth.

 

So stiff the hand to wrench and grab

so stunted, feet, to trudge;

the weary eye’d think all life drab,

one’s paradisal grudge.

 

When hope is stirred, not wit or whim,

a fire, too, is stirred.

‘Tis then the soul her nurture finds,

ahunger’d less for food than word.