Nicholas Bindle

By Edgar Lee Masters

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 and all but ruined me,

Worshipped for the first time after his acquittal?