Abel Melveny + 

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 clearer + 

About 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 machine + 

That Life had never used. + 