Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

44. Nicholas Bindle

WERE you not ashamed, fellow citizens,

When my estate was probated and everyone knew

How small a fortune I left?—

You who hounded me in life,

To give, give, give to the churches, to the poor,

To the village!—me who had already given much.

And think you not I did not know

That the pipe-organ, which I gave to the church,

Played its christening songs when Deacon Rhodes,

Who broke the bank and all but ruined me,

Worshipped for the first time after his acquittal?