The Shoveller

Vanity of vanities, saith the shoveller; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the falling sky?

One storm passeth away, and another storm cometh; but the path abideth for ever, and must be cleared for ever. The snow goeth down soft in the night, and lieth upon the walk, and the man riseth and taketh up the shovel; and he casteth the snow to the one side, and to the other, and laboureth from the door to the gate, and his breath smoketh, and the muscle of his back crieth out. And the walk is clean, and dark, and the stone of it showeth; and he leaneth upon the shovel, and looketh upon his work, and it is good.

And in the night it snoweth again.

The wind goeth toward the north, and whirleth about unto the south, and bringeth the cloud again according to its circuits; and the sky is not emptied, though it snow a thousand winters, neither is the ground ever done with covering. All the labour of the shovel runneth into the morning, and the morning is not full; unto the place from whence the snow came, thither it returneth again. That which hath fallen is that which shall fall, and that which is shovelled is that which shall be shovelled; and there is no new thing under the winter sun.

Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this path is cleared, and cleared for good? It hath been already, of old time, in the winters which were before us; and the men that cleared them are themselves gone under, and are not remembered, and their paths are grown over, and it is all one. For the clearing is not remembered, only the storm; and the storm forgetteth the clearing, and cometh again.

To every thing there is a season: a time to snow, and a time to shovel; a time to clear the path, and a time to let it fill; a time when the arm is strong, and a time when it faileth. The shoveller knoweth this, and shovelleth still. For he hath considered the labour, and seen that it is a striving after snow, which none can gather and none can keep; and yet what else is there for a man to do, when the snow is on the walk and the old ones must get out, but to take up the shovel, and bend the back, and cast it to the side once more?

There is nothing better for a man than that he clear the path that is before him this morning, and warm his blood in the doing of it, and feel the stone come clean under the blade, and breathe the cold clean air; and not ask whether it will stay clear, for it will not. This also is vanity, and a striving after snow. But the path is open, and the old ones get out, and the labour was not for nothing, though it was not for ever; and the shovel goeth back behind the door against the next fall.

And the next fall cometh. It always cometh.

It may be so. It may not.