Robert Fulton Tanner speaks with bitter, weary irony. He remembers being bitten by a rat while demonstrating a trap in his hardware store, then turns that memory into a grim picture of existence. The speaker feels that life is a monstrous ogre too large to fight, and every person is like the rat: lured by tempting bait—money, love, status, power—only to find hidden wires and a spring waiting to snap shut. The trap is simply being alive. Once you reach for what you want, Life appears to stare, mock, and laugh while you scramble in fear. The mood is claustrophobic, sardonic, and defeated. There is no escape or revenge here, only the exhaustion of being watched and toyed with until even the ogre grows bored.
Robert Fulton Tanner — Summary
If a man could bite the giant hand That catches and destroys him, As I was bitten by a rat While demonstrating my patent trap, In my hardware store that day. But a man can never avenge himself On the monstrous ogre Life. You enter the room—that’s being born; And then you must live—work out your soul, Aha! the bait that you crave is in view: A woman with money you want to marry, Prestige, place, or power in the world. But there’s work to do and things to conquer— Oh, yes! the wires that screen the bait. At last you get in—but you hear a step: The ogre, Life, comes into the room, (He was waiting and heard the clang of the spring) To watch you nibble the wondrous cheese, And stare with his burning eyes at you, And scowl and laugh, and mock and curse you, Running up and down in the trap, Until your misery bores him.