It Was Just Like Everything Else In Life: Something Outside Myself Drew Me Down, My Own Strength Never Failed Me. Why, There Was The Time I Earned The Money With Which To Go Away To School, And My Father Suddenly Needed Help And I Had To Give Him All Of It. Just So It Went Till I Ended Up A Man-Of - All-Work In Spoon River. Thus When I Got The Water-Tower Cleaned, And They Hauled Me Up The Seventy Feet, I Unhooked The Rope From My Waist, And Laughingly Flung My Giant Arms Over The Smooth Steel Lips Of The Top Of The Tower - But They Slipped From The Treacherous Slime, And Down, Down, Down, I Plunged Through Bellowing Darkness!