comes to me from the ends of earth: everything which men and women
have valued anywhere comes sooner or later to me: and jewels and
fine knickknacks that were the pride of queens they bring me, and
wedding rings, and the baby's cradle with his little tooth marks on
the rim of it, and silver coffin-handles, or it may be an old
frying-pan, they bring me, but all comes to Jurgen. So that just to
sit there in my dark shop quiet-like, and wonder about the history
of my belongings and how they were made mine, is poetry, and is the
deep and high and ancient thinking of a god who is dozing among what
time has left of a dead world, if you understand me, Mother Sereda."

"I understand: oho, I understand that which pertains to gods, for a
sufficient reason."

"And then another thing, you do not need any turn for business:
people are glad to get whatever you choose to offer, for they would
not come otherwise. So you get the shining and rough-edged coins
that you can feel the proud king's head on, with his laurel-wreath
like millet seed under your fingers; and you get the flat and
greenish coins that are smeared with the titles and the chins and
hooked noses of emperors whom nobody remembers or cares about any
longer: all just by waiting there quiet-like, and making a favor of
it to let customers give you their belongings for a third of what
they are worth. And that is easy labor, even for a poet."

"I understand: I understand all labor."

"And people treat you a deal more civilly than any real need is,
because they are ashamed of trafficking with you at all: I dispute
if a poet could get such civility shown him in any other profession.