Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/95

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

There they squatted,
Gambling away
Their meagre pay,
Fatalists all.
I heard the muted fall
Of dice, then the assured
Retrieving sweep of hand on roughened board.

I thought it good to see
Four lives so free
From care; so indolently sure of each tomorrow,
And hearts attuned to sing away a sorrow.

Then, like a shot,
Out of the hot,
Still air, I heard a call.
"Throw up your hands,
I've got you all,
It's thirty days for gambling.
Come Tony, Paul,
Now Joe don't be a fool.
I've got you cool."

I saw his eyes and knew he'd never go;
Not Joe,
The strongest hand in River Bow.
Springing from where he sat, straight, cleanly made,
He soared, a leaping shadow, from the shade
With fifty feet to go.
It was the stiffest hand he ever played.
To win the corner meant
Deep, sweet content
Among his laughing kind.
To lose; to suffer blind,
Degrading slavery upon "The gang."
And killing suns, and fever ridden nights
Behind relentless bars
Of prison cars.

80