Mickey M’Grew + 

It was just like everything else in life: + 

Something outside myself drew me down, + 

My own strength never failed me. + 

Why, there was the time I earned the money + 

With which to go away to school, + 

And my father suddenly needed help + 

And I had to give him all of it. + 

Just so it went till I ended up + 

A man-of-all-work in Spoon River. + 

Thus when I got the water-tower cleaned, + 

And they hauled me up the seventy feet, + 

I unhooked the rope from my waist, + 

And laughingly flung my giant arms + 

Over the smooth steel lips of the top of the tower⁠— + 

But they slipped from the treacherous slime, + 

And down, down, down, I plunged + 

Through bellowing darkness! + 