Granville Calhoun by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

I wanted to be County Judge / One more term, so as to round out a service / Of thirty years.

But my friends left me and joined my enemies, / And they elected a new man.

Then a spirit of revenge seized me, / And I infected my four sons with it, / And I brooded upon retaliation, / Until the great physician, Nature, / Smote me through with paralysis / To give my soul and body a rest.

Did my sons get power and money?

Did they serve the people or yoke them, / To till and harvest fields of self?

For how could they ever forget / My face at my bed-room window, / Sitting helpless amid my golden cages / Of singing canaries, / Looking at the old courthouse?