This Man’s life had four stages as I hear.
The first stage took him through the days of school
And fastened on his name a prophecy
That he would win success. The second stage
Took him to thirty years while he was fumbling
The strings to find the key and play in key.
The third stage marked discouragement, departure
To speculations and to reconcilement
That he was born no lawyer. And the fourth
Was one of quietude and trivial days.
I knew him in this fourth stage as a man
Emerging from a house across the street
On Sunday mornings in silk hat, long coat
And bamboo cane. When summer came he donned
A flannel suit of gray, a panama
And gloves of tan. When winter came he wore
A double-breasted coat with lamb’s fur collar.
He had no friends, so far as one could see,
No membership in clubs, was never seen
Where men meet, or society is gathered.
Sometimes he stopped to tell a passer-by
The day is fine, it’s very fine, you’re right,
In voice complaisant. The neighbors knew
He lived upon a little purse he made
In compromise of some preposterous wrong.
And people wondered how the purse was lasting,
And wondered how much longer he could loaf,
How many seasons more he could appear
So seasonably attired and walk the streets
In such velleity, with such vacuous light
Grown steady in his eyes.

I love to watch
The chickens in a barn-yard. Nothing else
Is quite so near the human brood. You’ll see
Invariably a rooster stalk about
In aimless fashion, moving here and there,
Picking at times with dull inappetence
At grains or grit, or standing for a time
In listless revery. I never saw
A man with such resemblance to this rooster
As this man was.

At last we had not seen
Our man upon the street for several days.
And some one said he had been very ill.
His wife had fears and wept and said ’twas hard
Just on the eve of great success to die.
He had thought out a plan, she said, to win
Great trade in South America for us.
Our State Department thought it excellent.
And then one day four doctors passed his door
For consultation, and the word went round
Our man rebelled most piteously and said
He could not die until he had worked out
His dream of South America. He knew
His danger, had the doctors called to check
The inroads of the peril, though the purse
Was growing slim, as we discovered later.

One noon-time as I came along the street
Where twenty children laughed and followed me,
Half playing at their game, half following
My banterings and idle talk, and asking
About the bundle underneath my arm.
“It’s nothing but a chicken, go away,”
I said to them.

And there across the street
Was crape upon the door—our man was dead,
And I was carrying chicken home to boil.