John Curtis Underwood

YOU who have felt the pressure and made good,

Who cold and hungry heard the presses thunder;

And watched with eyes that little understood

Sheet after sheet show white, and double under;

And saw beside you there some face of wood,

Some well-clad idler’s stare of vacant wonder;

Clubman, collegian, child or priest or maid:

Have you not envied them their careless faces,

Their lives untried, untainted, unafraid;

Their linen white? These are the printless spaces,

The margins for your mark. His ink may fade,

God’s sheet moves on. You would not change your places.