Jack McGuire

Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)



They would have lynched me
Had I not been secretly hurried away
To the jail at Peoria.
And yet I was going peacefully home,
Carrying my jug, a little drunk,
When Logan, the marshal, halted me,
Called me a drunken hound and shook me,
And, when I cursed him for it, struck me
With that Prohibition loaded cane --
All this before I shot him.
They would have hanged me except for this:
My lawyer, Kinsey Keene, was helping to land
Old Thomas Rhodes for wrecking the bank,
And the judge was a friend of Rhodes
And wanted him to escape,
And Kinsey offered to quit on Rhodes
For fourteen years for me.
And the bargain was made. I served my time
And learned to read and write.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
101

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEAAAFGHIJKLKAMN
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 658
Words 130
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 19

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. more…

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