The Poetry Corner

Robert Fulton Tanner

By Edgar Lee Masters

If a man could bite the giant hand That catches and destroys him, As I was bitten by a rat While demonstrating my patent trap, In my hardware store that day. But a man can never avenge himself On the monstrous ogre Life. You enter the roomthat's being born; And then you must livework out your soul, Of the cross-current in life Which Bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame.