Rhodes' slave! Selling shoes and gingham, <br />Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long <br />For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days <br />For more than twenty years. <br />Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir", and "Thank you" <br />A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month. <br />Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial." <br />And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listen <br />To the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a year <br />For more than an hour at a time, <br />Because Thomas Rhodes ran the church <br />As well as the store and the bank. <br />So while I was tying my neck-tie that morning <br />I suddenly saw myself in the glass: <br />My hair all gray, my face like a sodden pie. <br />So I cursed and cursed: You damned old thing <br />You cowardly dog! You rotten pauper! <br />You Rhodes' slave! Till Roger Baughman <br />Thought I was having a fight with some one, <br />And looked through the transom just in time <br />To see me fall on the floor in a heap <br />From a broken vein in my head.<br /><br />Edgar Lee Masters<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/eugene-carman/
