RHODES' slave! Selling shoes and gingham, Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days For more than twenty years. Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir" and "Thank you" A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month. Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial." And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listen To the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a year For more than an hour at a time, Because Thomas Rhodes ran the church As well as the store and the bank. So while I was tying my neck-tie that morning I suddenly saw myself in the glass: My hair all gray, my face like a sodden pie. So I cursed and cursed: You damned old thing! You cowardly dog! You rotten pauper! You Rhodes' slave! Till Roger Baughman Thought I was having a fight with some one, And looked through the transom just in time To see me fall on the floor in a heap From a broken vein in my head. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BURNING DAWN by HAYDEN CARRUTH DAT GAL O' MINE by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE LAMP OF LIFE by AMY LOWELL THE STARLING; SONNET by AMY LOWELL ANOTHER DARK LADY by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON BALLADE OF DEAD FRIENDS by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON CAPUT MORTUUM by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |