I'M the trained ass, the very ass who can Startle the learned, counting like a man. With whip in hand my master makes me climb An old, cracked tub and balance for a time. The plaudits of the crowd his zeal enhance. So down I step and next am forced to dance. "Where's Paris?" someone asks. My foot I place O'er the right spot upon the map of France. Next: "Ass, survey the circle, face by face, And stop and with your nodding head point out Among the audience the most stupid lout." . . . I obey, quite sure that I make no mistake . . . My mind, each time he wants to teach me, knows How the man daily in his ignorance grows. At night, in the old tent that flaps and jars Sadly I sleep under the windy sky. The obsession of knowledge haunts me. And I try In my nightmare to count the very stars. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: FLETCHER MCGEE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS CONTRA MORTEM: THE WATER by HAYDEN CARRUTH WHAT THING A BIRD WOULD LOVE by ROBERT FROST DESIRE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON BRER RABBIT, YOU'S DE CUTES' OF 'EM ALL by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON |