_The Burden_
I know too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave-dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me.
Why am I to blame for all that is wrong in the world? I didn't invent Sin and Hate and Slaughter. Who made it my duty anyhow to administer the Universe, and keep the planets to their Copernican courses? My shoulders are bent beneath the weight of the firmament; I grow weary of propping up, like Atlas, this vast and erroneous Cosmos.
_Under An Umbrella_
From under the roof of my umbrella I saw the washed pavement lapsing beneath my feet, the news-posters lying smeared with dirt at the crossings, the tracks of the busses in the liquid mud. On I went through this dreary world of wetness. And through how many rains and years shall I still hurry down wet streets--middle-aged, and then, perhaps, very old? And on what errands?
Asking myself this cheerless question I fade from your vision, Reader, into the distance, sloping my umbrella against the wind.
THE END