| MY parents thought that I would be | |
| As great as Edison or greater: | |
| For as a boy I made balloons | |
| And wondrous kites and toys with clocks | |
| And little engines with tracks to run on | 5 |
| And telephones of cans and thread. | |
| I played the cornet and painted pictures, | |
| Modeled in clay and took the part | |
| Of the villain in the “Octoroon.” | |
| But then at twenty-one I married | 10 |
| And had to live, and so, to live | |
| I learned the trade of making watches | |
| And kept the jewelry store on the square, | |
| Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking,— | |
| Not of business, but of the engine | 15 |
| I studied the calculus to build. | |
| And all Spoon River watched and waited | |
| To see it work, but it never worked. | |
| And a few kind souls believed my genius | |
| Was somehow hampered by the store. | 20 |
| It wasn’t true. The truth was this: | |
| I didn’t have the brains. | |
