| I WAS a gun-smith in Odessa. | |
| One night the police broke in the room | |
| Where a group of us were reading Spencer. | |
| And seized our books and arrested us. | |
| But I escaped and came to New York | 5 |
| And thence to Chicago, and then to Spoon River, | |
| Where I could study my Kant in peace | |
| And eke out a living repairing guns! | |
| Look at my moulds! My architectonics! | |
| One for a barrel, one for a hammer, | 10 |
| And others for other parts of a gun! | |
| Well, now suppose no gun-smith living | |
| Had anything else but duplicate moulds | |
| Of these I show you—well, all guns | |
| Would be just alike, with a hammer to hit | 15 |
| The cap and a barrel to carry the shot, | |
| All acting alike for themselves, and all | |
| Acting against each other alike. | |
| And there would be your world of guns! | |
| Which nothing could ever free from itself | 20 |
| Except a Moulder with different moulds | |
| To mould the metal over. | |
