Back to Index

Franklin Jones

by Edgar Lee Masters, 1916

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!

Published in Spoon River Anthology
Tags:

Any corrections or public domain poems I should have here? Email me at poems (at) this domain.