This poem was included in the original 1915 edition.
I BOUGHT every kind of machine that's known-- Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers, Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers-- And all of them stood in the rain and sun, Getting rusted, warped and battered, For I had no sheds to store them in, And no use for most of them. And toward the last, when I thought it over, There by my window, growing clearer About myself, as my pulse slowed down, And looked at one of the mills I bought-- Which I didn't have the slightest need of, As things turned out, and I never ran-- A fine machine, once brightly varnished, And eager to do its work, Now with its paint washed off-- I saw myself as a good machine That Life had never used.
, 4 months ago
This is a great poem about a man who made many wrong decisions in his life. Only on reflection as he nears death can he start to understand that he didn't truly live his life. This is a sad study of the human condition that I think is still very fitting today.
One thing that strikes me about this poem is that it seems very undercrafted. I've been reading a lot about Masters's approach to his SRA poems, and from what I've gathered, he often spent very little time revising or redrafting his poems. He wrote them and that was about it. This poems seems raw and new and like it just got poured out onto the paper, and that's why I like it so much.
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Marla Bellmer , 6 months ago
He made the choice to collect equipment he didn't need, he made the choice not to use it. Her also made the choice not to "live" his own life. The both sad and wonderful part being that he recognized it before he died (but too late to change.)