I was a gun-smith in Odessa. <br />One night the police broke in the room <br />Where a group of us were reading Spencer. <br />And seized our books and arrested us. <br />But I escaped and came to New York <br />And thence to Chicago, and then to Spoon River, <br />Where I could study my Kant in peace <br />And eke out a living repairing guns! <br />Look at my moulds! My architectonics! <br />One for a barrel, one for a hammer, <br />And others for other parts of a gun! <br />Well, now suppose no gun-smith living <br />Had anything else but duplicate moulds <br />Of these I show you -- well, all guns <br />Would be just alike, with a hammer to hit <br />The cap and a barrel to carry the shot, <br />All acting alike for themselves, and all <br />Acting against each other alike. <br />And there would be your world of guns! <br />Which nothing could ever free from itself <br />Except a Moulder with different moulds <br />To mould the metal over.<br /><br />Edgar Lee Masters<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ippolit-konovaloff/
