Joaquin Miller's Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

“So I have said, and I say it over,
And can prove it over and over again,
That the four-footed beasts in the red-crown'd clover,
The piéd and hornéd beasts on the plain
That lie down, rise up, and repose again,
And do never take care or toil or spin,
Nor buy, nor build, nor gather in gold,
As the days go out and the tides come in,
Are better than we by a thousand-fold;
For what is it all, in the words of fire,
But a vexing of soul and a vain desire?”

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This book, in the following lines, was dedicated to Maud, my little daughter in Oregon.