...et Labora

A lyric meditation on work

Leisure and Labor by Frank Blackwell Mayer

What employment is he fit for?
What position should he hold?
Which the cart to pull the bit for?
Which the vein to mine for gold?

Should extracting bread from soil
(Fell alchemical pursuit!)
Be the object of his toil,
His purpose, sole and absolute?

Or should he be more enterprising—
Shake the pillars of the earth?
Or earn a name by exorcising
Demons from his place of birth?

Maybe offer entertainment:
Play a hapless, blanched Pierrot
Before the judge at his arraignment,
A tragicomic, one-man show?

Or, at length, become a teacher
And tell of things he might have done
And bittersweetly quote the Preacher:
“All’s vanity beneath the sun”?

O vicious virtue, hesitation!—
Fold the hand and bury coin—
Neither can you grasp salvation
Nor breach commands that Love enjoins:

For both the sheep, the Shepherd serving,
And the goats aroast in Hell
Have surely won their just deservings
By working all their workings well.

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