Explore "Silas Dement" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was moonlight, and the earth sparkled / With new-fallen frost.
It was midnight and not a soul abroad.
Out of the chimney of the courthouse / A gray-hound of smoke leapt and chased / The northwest wind.
I carried a ladder to the landing of the stairs / And leaned it against the frame of the trap-door / In the ceiling of the portico, / And I crawled under the roof and amid the rafters / And flung among the seasoned timbers / A lighted handful of oil-soaked waste.
Then I came down and slunk away.
In a little while the fire-bell rang --
Clang! Clang! Clang!
And the Spoon River ladder company / Came with a dozen buckets and began to pour water / On the glorious bon-fire, growing hotter / Higher and brighter, till the walls fell in, / And the limestone columns where Lincoln stood / Crashed like trees when the woodman fells them.
When I came back from Joliet / There was a new court house with a dome.
For I was punished like all who destroy / The past for the sake of the future.