Shack Dye

The white men played all sorts of jokes on me.         They took big fish off my hook         And put little ones on, while I was away         Getting a stringer, and made me believe         I hadn't seen aright the fish I had caught.         When Burr Robbins, circus came to town         They got the ring master to let a tame leopard         Into the ring, and made me believe         I was whipping a wild beast like Samson         When I, for an offer of fifty dollars,         Dragged him out to his cage.         One time I entered my blacksmith shop         And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling         Across the floor, as if alive -         Walter Simmons had put a magnet         Under the barrel of water.         Yet everyone of you, you white men,         Was fooled about fish and about leopards too,         And you didn't know any more than the horse-shoes did         What moved you about Spoon River.