The little old house was out with a little new shed
In front at the edge of the road where the traffic sped,
A roadside stand that too pathetically pled,
It Would not be fair to say for a dole of bread,
But for some of the money, the cash,whose flow supports
The flower of cities from sinking and withering faint.
The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead,
Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts
And having the landscape married with the artless paint
Of sign that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong
Offered for sale wild berries in wooden quart,
Or crook- necked golden squash with silver warts,
On beauty rest in a beautiful mountain scene,
You have the money, but if you want to be mean,
Why keep your money( this crossly) and go along.
The hurt to the scenery wouldn't be my complaint
So much as the trusting sorrow of what is unsaid:
Hey, far from the city we make our roadside stand
And ask for some city money to feel in hand
To try if it will not make our being expand,
And give us the life of the moving-pictures promise
That the party in power in said to be keeping for us.
It is in the news that all these pitiful kin
Are to be bought out and mercifully gathered in
To live in villages, next to the theatre and the store,
Where they won't have to think for themselves anymore,
While greedy good-doers, beneficient beasts of prey,
Swam over their lives enforcing benefits
That are calculated to soo the them out of their wits,
And by teaching them how to sleep they sleep all day,
Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way.
Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear
The thought of so much childish jonging in vain,
The sadness that lurks near the open window there,
They waits all day in almost open prayer
For the squeal of breakes, the sound of a stopping car,
Of all the thousand selfish cars that pass,
Just one to inquire what a farmer's prices are.
And one did stop, but only to plow up grass
In using the yard to back and turn around;
And another to ask could they sell it a gallon of gas
They couldn't ( this crossly); they have none, didn't it see?
No, in country money, the country scale of gain,
The requisite lift of spirit has never been found,
Or so the voice of the country seems to complain,
I can't help owning the great relief it would be
To put these people at one a stroke out of their pain.
And then next day as I come back into the sane,
I wonder how I should like you to come to me
An offer to put me gently out of my pain.