| A sodden mind sheds soggy morals |
| off its duck's-back basis of belief. |
| Squatting now upon its laurels |
| years of yearning learning get relief. |
| An open mind is fertile earth, |
| ideas raining down on it at length; |
| like land, it drinks when near its birth |
| with gusto, turning moisture into strength. |
| The Summer mind's ideas flower, |
| flourish with the rains, until at last |
| its fruits and foliage - wisdom's power - |
| are harvested, and the day of youth is past. |
| Now Autumn minds grow brown of leaf |
| and rains erode the sated Autumn earth. |
| The spare supply of wet belief |
| is wasted. Lack of want destroys its worth. |
| Yet know that though the ground will freeze |
| and snows of dullness cover Summer's green, |
| yet ice will melt with the first warm breeze; |
| and somewhere there are always evergreens. |