I bought every kind of machine that’s known—Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers,Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers—And all of them stood in the rain and sun,Getting rusted, warped and battered,For I had no sheds to store them in,And no use for most of them.And toward the last, when I thought it over,There by my window, growing clearerAbout myself, as my pulse slowed down,And looked at one of the mills I bought—Which I didn’t have the slightest need of,As things turned out, and I never ran—A fine machine, once brightly varnished,And eager to do its work,Now with its paint washed off—I saw myself as a good machineThat Life had never used.
Spoon River Anthology · Edgar Lee Masters