After I got religion and steadied down They gave me a job in the canning works, And every morning I had to fill The tank in the yard with gasoline, That fed the blow-fires in the sheds To heat the soldering irons. And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it, Carrying buckets full of the stuff. One morning, as I stood there pouring, The air grew still and seemed to heave, And I shot up as the tank exploded, And down I came with both legs broken, And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs. For someone left a blow - fire going, And something sucked the flame in the tank. The Circuit Judge said whoever did it Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so Old Rhodes' son didn't have to pay me. And I sat on the witness stand as blind As lack the Fiddler, saying over and over, "I didn't know him at all." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A WISH by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI PRELUDE by JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE A DREAM OF DEATH by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THE SISTER'S TRAGEDY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO A BUNCH OF GRAPES; RIPENING IN MY WINDOW by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE ICONOCLAST by WILLIAM ROSE BENET AN EPISTLE TO J. BL-K-N, ESQ.: ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST by JOHN BYROM |