Reuben Bright by Edwin Arlington Robinson
I also procured this one while visiting my poetry pals. Robinson seems to like writing about unhappy men.
Reuben Bright
By Edwin Arlington Robinson
Because he was a butcher and thereby
Did earn an honest living (and did right),
I would not have you think that Reuben Bright
Was any more a brute than you or I;
For when they told him that his wife must die,
He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright,
And cried like a great baby half that night,
And made the women cry to see him cry.
And after she was dead, and he had paid
The singers and the sexton and the rest,
He packed a lot of things that she had made
Most mournfully away in an old chest
Or hers, and put some chopped-up cedar boughs
In with them, and tore down the slaughter house.
Current Tea: Clarksville cordial (Indian Korakundah Estate black tea with ginger, orange, & peach)
