Explore "Alfred Moir" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Why was I not devoured by self-contempt, / And rotted down by indifference / And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones?
Why, with all of my errant steps, / Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke?
And why, though I stood at Burchard's bar, / As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys / To buy the drinks, did the curse of drink / Fall on me like rain that runs off, / Leaving the soul of me dry and clean?
And why did I never kill a man / Like Jack McGuire?
But instead I mounted a little in life, / And I owe it all to a book I read.
But why did I go to Mason City, / Where I chanced to see the book in a window, / With its garish cover luring my eye?
And why did my soul respond to the book, / As I read it over and over?