Henry PhippsI was the Sunday-school superintendent,The dummy president of the wagon worksAnd the canning factory,Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique;My son the cashier of the bank,Wedded to Rhodes’ daughter,My week days spent in making money,My Sundays at church and in prayer.In everything a cog in the wheel of things-as-they-are:Of money, master and man, made whiteWith the paint of the Christian creed.And then:The bank collapsed.I stood and hooked at the wrecked machine—The wheels with blow-holes stopped with putty and painted;The rotten bolts, the broken rods;And only the hopper for souls fit to be used againIn a new devourer of life,When newspapers, judges and money-magiciansBuild over again.I was stripped to the bone, but I lay in the Rock of Ages,Seeing now through the game, no longer a dupe,And knowing “the upright shall dwell in the landBut the years of the wicked shall be shortened.”Then suddenly, Dr. Meyers discoveredA cancer in my liver.I was not, after all, the particular care of GodWhy, even thus standing on a peakAbove the mists through which I had climbed,And ready for larger life in the world,Eternal forcesMoved me on with a push.
I was the Sunday-school superintendent,The dummy president of the wagon worksAnd the canning factory,Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique;My son the cashier of the bank,Wedded to Rhodes’ daughter,My week days spent in making money,My Sundays at church and in prayer.In everything a cog in the wheel of things-as-they-are:Of money, master and man, made whiteWith the paint of the Christian creed.And then:The bank collapsed.I stood and hooked at the wrecked machine—The wheels with blow-holes stopped with putty and painted;The rotten bolts, the broken rods;And only the hopper for souls fit to be used againIn a new devourer of life,When newspapers, judges and money-magiciansBuild over again.I was stripped to the bone, but I lay in the Rock of Ages,Seeing now through the game, no longer a dupe,And knowing “the upright shall dwell in the landBut the years of the wicked shall be shortened.”Then suddenly, Dr. Meyers discoveredA cancer in my liver.I was not, after all, the particular care of GodWhy, even thus standing on a peakAbove the mists through which I had climbed,And ready for larger life in the world,Eternal forcesMoved me on with a push.