For All You People

Who never can catch up,

Whose letters lie for months before they're answered,

Who fall behind on payments, plans,

(And all the plays unseen and orchestras unheard! )

Who still on Wednesday morning

Are reading Sunday's Times,

Who some day, once these other things are done,

Are going abroad; '

Whose desks grow daily denser,

Who complain perpetually of being "snowed under,"

(You like the snow

For it is soft and innocent like yourselves,

The outlines which it forms

Uncertain, too);

For whom the present is the future, and for whom

Only the past is real, for whom tomorrow

Is several times removed, the shadow of a shadow,

Whose lives revolve upon the harried hope

At last, at least, of some day breaking even:

By Death (who differs from you)

You will never be embarrassed, |

Your cheeks being habitually red.

And he alone, with his amusing trick

Of making time keep still, can grant your wish

And now you are caught up with everything.

Oliver Evans

84 .