“What, here so soon?
Sunset and night?
Why, I have work to do that needs the noon,
And day’s broad light!
See! On the palette, there, the colours are but set,
The canvas still unwet,
And it is night.
“How sweet ‘twould be,
My work all done–
To sit at eve, my threshold on, and see
Stars, one by one,
Flash into the dark heaven! Oh, happy rest!
My folded hands, how blest;
But–’tis already night.”
It is easy to let things run down. We begin carefully, but presently lapse into carelessness. A child’s copy book is apt to show reasonably fair following of the copy in the top lines, and then the farther down the page the worse. An old adage has it that a new broom sweeps clean; implying that as it gets older it does not do its work so well. This tendency from good to less good, from watchfulness to neglect is not confined, however, to such inanimate instruments as brooms. The disposition is human and very common, if not almost universal.
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