Минерва Джоунс Минерва, селската поетеса съм аз, осмивана, подигравана от местните дебелаци заради тежко тяло, кривогледи очи и тромав вървеж, особе… - Edgar Lee Masters

You may think, passer-by, that Fate
Is a pit-fall outside of yourself,
Around which you may walk by the use of foresight
And wisdom.

What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you — It takes life to love Life.

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.