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

74. Blind Jack

I HAD fiddled all at the county fair.

But driving home “Butch” Weldy and Jack McGuire,

Who were roaring full, made me fiddle and fiddle

To the song of Susie Skinner, while whipping the horses

Till they ran away.

Blind as I was, I tried to get out

As the carriage fell in the ditch,

And was caught in the wheels and killed.

There’s a blind man here with a brow

As big and white as a cloud.

And all we fiddlers, from highest to lowest,

Writers of music and tellers of stories,

Sit at his feet,

And hear him sing of the fall of Troy.