Granville Calhoun looks back on the moment his long career as a county judge was cut short. After thirty years, his friends abandoned him and helped elect someone else, and the defeat filled him with a desire for revenge. He passed that bitterness on to his four sons, brooding over payback until a stroke or paralysis forced him to stop. Now he sits helplessly at a window, surrounded by caged canaries, staring at the courthouse he can no longer enter. The mood is regretful and quietly haunting. Calhoun is not at peace; he wonders whether his sons gained power and money only to exploit people or to do some good. The singing canaries in their golden cages mirror his own trapped state—comfortable on the surface, but unable to act, still fixated on the life and status he lost. His revenge has outlived his body, but it has left him hollow.
Granville Calhoun — Summary
I wanted to be County Judge One more term, so as to round out a service Of thirty years. But my friends left me and joined my enemies, And they elected a new man. Then a spirit of revenge seized me, And I infected my four sons with it, And I brooded upon retaliation, Until the great physician, Nature, Smote me through with paralysis To give my soul and body a rest. Did my sons get power and money? Did they serve the people or yoke them, To till and harvest fields of self? For how could they ever forget My face at my bed-room window, Sitting helpless amid my golden cages Of singing canaries, Looking at the old court-house?