Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

81. Franklin Jones

IF I could have lived another year

I could have finished my flying machine,

And become rich and famous.

Hence it is fitting the workman

Who tried to chisel a dove for me

Made it look more like a chicken.

For what is it all but being hatched,

And running about the yard,

To the day of the block?

Save that a man has an angel’s brain,

And sees the ax from the first!