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...THE LITANY OF THE DARK PEOPLE by COUNTEE CULLEN I LOOKED FOR LIFE AND DID A SHADOW SEE by JAMES GALVIN DEEP IN THE QUIET WOOD by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON TO BAYARD TAYLOR by SIDNEY LANIER MARJORIE'S WOOING by EMMA LAZARUS A MAN CHILD IS BORN (1839) by EDGAR LEE MASTERS DOMESDAY BOOK: JOHN SCOFIELD by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |