Page 56 - Poetry-Books

The Glacier versus the Editor

Adown a Glacier’s steep crevasse I dropped a little song,
And far within the shining depths it slipped and slid along.
Then to an Editor I sent the self-same song away;
The Editor accepted it upon that self-same day.
He did not print it—but his words were courteous, warm, and kind.
The Glacier held with frigid grasp my little song enshrined.
The Glacier or the Editor?—I fain would see revealed
Which icy heart would be the first my little song to yield.
Far, far above, through sun and storm, the Glacier gleamed and shone;
I took my little rocking-chair and climbed the Alps alone;
For fifty years I sat and watched that Glacier’s glittering way,
In hope to see it bring my song again to upper day.
For fifty years I watched the date the magazine appears—
No murmur once escaped my lips in all those fifty years;
But still, with meek humility,—heart-sick with hope deferred,—
Deferred to judgment wiser far, and never once demurred.
And yet again the pages scanned each month with hope renewed,
Each month, in deep dejection lost, the cruel pages viewed.
Again Hope spake with cheering voice, and waved her drooping wing,
“Take heart! The Century of next month your song will surely bring!”
At last, with heart all turned to ice, despair too deep to name,
I calmly gave my poem up—the Glacier did the same!

— Charlotte W. Thurston (Century Magazine, 1888)

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