SUNDAY. Deserted square. Upon Two double doors Comes sudden knock. Within, one goes to unlock These. Knuckle-duster floors Him. Weltering in his blood, He lies like clod, Unmurmuring, mute, What time that burglarious brute Puts into execution His plan, and scales The pitch-pine pales Which guard the safe. With execrable composure, Climbing the criss-cross wiring of that tall enclosure. After a slender space, the lone Caretaker comes To consciousness: Shakes his lightheadedness, Flings from himself the fumes Which fog him. Gallant, goes On tottering toes By sorting-boards Sustained—each one affords Proof of the path thus gone— With blood-stained grip And finger-tip, To-wards a door which stops and stays the interstice Between this huge, high sorting-hall and Public Office. He's through that door! The counter-flap Is lifted. Brave, He staggers on, Strong in devotion. His only thought to save The safe, the Public Purse From that perverse Degenerate, And, self-less, supplicate Help. But with clamant clap Behind him bangs The door, and clangs News of his effort ... just as his fumbling fingers find, And leave their bloody marks on, down-drawn yellow blind. And now, alas! o'er-pow'r'd, within That Hall, once more, The ruffian Drags the small, half-dazed man, Forces him through the door Of post-magisterial room, To meet dread doom, Wields iron rod Until the human blood Goes splashing, crimosin, Upon the walls. The victim falls Lifeless, with lacerated brain and sway and sag, To hearthrug. His slayer hides the broken face with bag. Then, calm and callous, climbs again Those pales, those wires, Therein completes His hideous crime; secretes His spoils. At ease retires To basement-washing-place; Removes all trace Of blood. Returns Upstairs, and thence discerns The square unpeopled. Plain His path, his plan ... Demonian, He, aim achieved, his foul task fully done, Odious, immune, unnoticed, slips into the sun. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY FATHER'S FACE by HAYDEN CARRUTH A MAN CHILD IS BORN (1839) by EDGAR LEE MASTERS DOMESDAY BOOK: HENRY MURRAY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: BARNEY HAINSFEATHER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |