Profits by Fannie Stearns Davis
"Profits" by Fannie Stearns Davis is a lyric poem that meditates on the nature of true spiritual and artistic value, asking what lasting worth can be found in a life devoted to beauty, nature, and poetry rather than material gain. The poem opens with the speaker, an aging poet, reflecting on a lifetime of intimate communion with the natural world — stars, wind, sea, hilltops, and hidden waters. These experiences were not peripheral pleasures but the core substance of the speaker's existence, with stars holding the most central place of all. The speaker describes learning the ways of stars, their movement and their relationship to Eternity, and finding in that knowledge a sense of walking alongside God. Now old and at peace with approaching death, the speaker anticipates the dismissive question of the practical-minded: what profit came from devoting oneself to such distant, bloodless, intangible things? The answer reframes the very concept of profit. The sea gains nothing material from her mournful song, the sun earns nothing from staring into space, and even God acquires no measurable return from the vast ages of blood and fire that constitute creation. Yet all of these persist. The speaker claims the same kind of profit — not wealth or legacy, but an immunity to the deepest form of mortality, which is meaninglessness. To have truly companied with stars, light, and living beauty is to be saved from becoming merely the worthless sand that time sifts away. The poem closes with the speaker's declaration of great peace, asserting that stars will abide with the soul eternally. The second section, titled "The Poet Rebukes His Flatterers," extends the meditation into the social dimension of artistic life. Here the speaker turns sharply away from public praise, rejecting the applause of admirers who celebrate finished poems without understanding what producing them cost. The songs are described not as crafted achievements but as things found — feathers caught, leaves crushed — accidents of perception rather than triumphs of skill. The flatterers praised the beautiful product while being entirely absent during the grief, fear, and struggle that preceded it, leaving the speaker comforted only by God. The rebuke intensifies when the speaker draws attention to a friend standing nearby — a figure who suffers deeply and privately, suppressing his own wounded life lest it cry out in pain, yet who speaks the speaker's name with love so sincere it is almost unbearable. This suffering, silent friend embodies a heroism the applauding crowd entirely ignores. His endurance in darkness dwarfs any poetic achievement. The speaker feels shame and humility in the face of such quiet, unrecognized courage, and turns the crowd's admiring gaze toward the friend's blood-stained hands and feet — an image invoking sacrificial suffering — asking whether the crowd has even a small word for him. Together the two sections build a unified argument: value does not reside in what the world measures, applauds, or rewards. It lives in honest communion with eternal things, in the willingness to suffer without recognition, and in the love that persists through darkness without needing an audience.
By Fannie Stearns Davis · First published 1920 · Genre: Literary Fiction, Social Commentary, Realism · 477 words
First lines
Yes, stars were with me formerly. (I also knew the wind and sea; And hill-tops had my feet by heart. Their shagged heights would sting and start When I came leaping on their backs. I knew the earth's queer crooked cracks, Where hidden waters weave a low And druid chant of joy and woe.)
But stars were with me most of all. I heard them flame and break and fall. Their excellent array, their free Encounter with Eternity, I learned. And it was good to know That where God walked, I too might go.
What this Textopian page supports
Profits is listed on Textopian as a short story by Fannie Stearns Davis, dated 1920 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: Fannie Stearns Davis
- Date: 1920 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Literary Fiction, Social Commentary, Realism, Drama, Historical Fiction
- Length: 477 words
- Structure: 1 section, 14 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Very Easy (5th Grade or below)
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- Work identity for Profits by Fannie Stearns Davis
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Literary Fiction — The novel explores complex themes of ambition, morality, and human nature through character-driven narrative and psychological depth.
- Social Commentary — The work examines societal structures, economic systems, and the consequences of unchecked ambition in capitalist society.
- Realism — The novel employs realistic narrative techniques and portrays authentic human experiences and social situations of its era.
- Drama — The story features interpersonal conflicts, emotional tensions, and dramatic developments centered on characters' struggles and decisions.
Tags
fiction · novel · American literature · social realism · economic themes · business · wealth · capitalism · class conflict · family relationships · marriage · women's lives