To My wife...

For permission to reprint the Spoon River Anthology in book form, I wish to thank William Marion Reedy, the editor of Reedy’s Mirror, where it appeared from week to week, beginning with May 29, 1914; ...

Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all are sleeping on the hill. One passed in a fever, One was burned in a m...

Have you seen walking through the village A man with downcast eyes and haggard face? That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty; Till at last, wrin...

She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars. She took the...

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 ...

They have chiseled on my stone the words: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.” Those who knew me smile As they r...

My life’s blossom might have bloomed on all sides Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals On the side of me which you in the village could see. From the dust I lift a voice of protest: My flowe...

Henry got me with child, Knowing that I could not bring forth life Without losing my own. In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust. Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived Tha...

You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River, In rearing Irene and Mary, Orphans of my older sister! And you censure Irene and Mary For their contempt for me! But praise not my self-sacrifice, And censur...

In life I was the town drunkard; When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground. The which redounded to my good fortune. For the Protestants bought this lot, And buried my body here, Close to ...

You never marveled, dullards of Spoon River, When Chase Henry voted against the saloons To revenge himself for being shut off. But none of you was keen enough To follow my steps, or trace me home As C...

How does it happen, tell me, That I who was most erudite of lawyers, Who knew Blackstone and Coke Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech The courthouse ever heard, and wrote A brief that won th...

Your attention, Thomas Rhodes, president of the bank; Coolbaugh Whedon, editor of the Argus; Rev. Peet, pastor of the leading church; A. D. Blood, several times Mayor of Spoon River; And finally all o...

Together in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law, And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend. Down the gray road, friends, children, men and women, Passing one by one out of l...

I know that he told that I snared his soul With a snare which bled him to death. And all the men loved him, And most of the women pitied him. But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate taste...

Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted, Your love was not all in vain. I owe whatever I was in life To your hope that would not give me up, To your love that saw me still as good. Dear Emily...

Where is my boy, my boy⁠— In what far part of the world? The boy I loved best of all in the school?⁠— I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart, Who made them all my children. Did I know my boy a...

Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist, What will result from compounding Fluids or solids. And who can tell How men and women will interact On each other, or what children will result?...

Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received For supporting candidates for office? Or for writing up the canning factory To get people to invest? Or fo...

Their spirits beat upon mine Like the wings of a thousand butterflies. I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating. I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes Fringed their cheeks from downc...

I am Minerva, the village poetess, Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk, And all the more when “Butch” Weldy Captured me after a brutal hunt. ...

You would not believe, would you, That I came from good Welsh stock? That I was purer blooded than the white trash here? And of more direct lineage than the New Englanders And Virginians of Spoon Rive...

No other man, unless it was Doc Hill, Did more for people in this town than I. And all the weak, the halt, the improvident And those who could not pay flocked to me. I was good-hearted, easy Doctor Me...

He protested all his life long The newspapers lied about him villainously; That he was not at fault for Minerva’s fall, But only tried to help her. Poor soul so sunk in sin he could not see That even ...

After I got religion and steadied down They gave me a job in the canning works, And every morning I had to fill The tank in the yard with gasoline, That fed the blow-fires in the sheds To heat the sol...

I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge. When I felt the bullet enter my heart I wished I had stayed at home and gone to jail For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary, Instead of running...

Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war The day before Curl Trenary Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett For stealing hogs. But that’s not the reason he turned a soldier. He caught me running with L...

Out of a cell into this darkened space⁠— The end at twenty-five! My tongue could not speak what stirred within me, And the village thought me a fool. Yet at the start there was a clear vision, A high ...

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s For cider, after school, in late September? Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin? For many times with the l...

Not in that wasted garden Where bodies are drawn into grass That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens That bear no fruit⁠— There where along the shaded walks Vain sighs are heard, And vainer dreams ar...

I went up and down the streets Here and there by day and night, Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick. Do you know why? My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs. And I turn...

In my Spanish cloak, And old slouch hat, And overshoes of felt, And Tyke, my faithful dog, And my knotted hickory cane, I slipped about with a bull’s-eye lantern From door to door on the square, As th...

Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree. The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass, The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls, But thou grievest, while my soul lies raptur...

My father who owned the wagon-shop And grew rich shoeing horses Sent me to the University of Montreal. I learned nothing and returned home, Roaming the fields with Bert Kessler, Hunting quail and snip...

From Bindle’s opera house in the village To Broadway is a great step. But I tried to take it, my ambition fired When sixteen years of age, Seeing “East Lynne,” played here in the village By Ralph Barr...

We quarreled that morning, For he was sixty-five, and I was thirty, And I was nervous and heavy with the child Whose birth I dreaded. I thought over the last letter written me By that estranged young ...

Father, thou canst never know The anguish that smote my heart For my disobedience, the moment I felt The remorseless wheel of the engine Sink into the crying flesh of my leg. As they carried me to the...

Did you ever find out Which one of the O’Brien boys it was Who snapped the toy pistol against my hand? There when the flags were red and white In the breeze and “Bucky” Estil Was firing the cannon bro...

I was sixteen, and I had the most terrible dreams, And specks before my eyes, and nervous weakness. And I couldn’t remember the books I read, Like Frank Drummer who memorized page after page. And my b...

As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hours On the shore of the turbid Spoon With deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish’s burrow, Waiting for him to appear, pushing ahead, First his waving a...

The Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal When the saloons were voted out, Because when I was a drinking man, Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede At the saw-mill near Maple Grove. And they wan...

They would have lynched me Had I not been secretly hurried away To the jail at Peoria. And yet I was going peacefully home, Carrying my jug, a little drunk, When Logan, the marshal, halted me, Called ...

I was not beloved of the villagers, But all because I spoke my mind, And met those who transgressed against me With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing Nor secret griefs nor grudges. That act of ...

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 ...

When Fort Sumter fell and the war came I cried out in bitterness of soul: “O glorious republic now no more!” When they buried my soldier son To the call of trumpets and the sound of drums My heart bro...

I leaned against the mantel, sick, sick, Thinking of my failure, looking into the abysm, Weak from the noon-day heat. A church bell sounded mournfully far away, I heard the cry of a baby, And the coug...

I would have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep-set eyes⁠— Gray, too, and far-searching. But ther...

Do you remember when I stood on the steps Of the Court House and talked free-silver, And the single-tax of Henry George? Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader Lost the first battle, I be...

I said when they handed me my diploma, I said to myself I will be good And wise and brave and helpful to others; I said I will carry the Christian creed Into the practice of medicine! Somehow the worl...

I never saw any difference Between playing cards for money And selling real estate, Practicing law, banking, or anything else. For everything is chance. Nevertheless Seest thou a man diligent in busin...

Here lies the body of Lois Spears, Born Lois Fluke, daughter of Willard Fluke, Wife of Cyrus Spears, Mother of Myrtle and Virgil Spears, Children with clear eyes and sound limbs⁠— (I was born blind) I...

It is true, fellow citizens, That my old docket lying there for years On a shelf above my head and over The seat of justice, I say it is true That docket had an iron rim Which gashed my baldness when ...

My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we⁠—we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the r...

Over and over they used to ask me, While buying the wine or the beer, In Peoria first, and later in Chicago, Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived, How I happened to lead the life, And what was t...

When my moustache curled, And my hair was black, And I wore tight trousers And a diamond stud, I was an excellent knave of hearts and took many a trick. But when the gray hairs began to appear⁠— Lo! a...

Often Aner Clute at the gate Refused me the parting kiss, Saying we should be engaged before that; And just with a distant clasp of the hand She bade me good-night, as I brought her home From the skat...

I belonged to the church, And to the party of prohibition; And the villagers thought I died of eating watermelon. In truth I had cirrhosis of the liver, For every noon for thirty years, I slipped behi...

I ran away from home with the circus, Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada, The lion tamer. One time, having starved the lions For more than a day, I entered the cage and began to beat Br...

I inherited forty acres from my Father And, by working my wife, my two sons and two daughters From dawn to dusk, I acquired A thousand acres. But not content, Wishing to own two thousand acres, I bust...

The earth keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you. And if the people find you can fiddle, Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. What do you see, a harvest of clover? Or a me...

I was only eight years old; And before I grew up and knew what it meant I had no words for it, except That I was frightened and told my Mother; And that my Father got a pistol And would have killed Ch...

Herbert broke our engagement of eight years When Annabelle returned to the village From the Seminary, ah me! If I had let my love for him alone It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow⁠— Who knows?...

All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness Of spirit and contempt of your soul’s rights Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you. You really grew...

I have studied many times The marble which was chiseled for me⁠— A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor. In truth it pictures not my destination But my life. For love was offered me and I shran...

It never came into my mind Until I was ready to die That Jenny had loved me to death, with malice of heart. For I was seventy, she was thirty-five, And I wore myself to a shadow trying to husband Jenn...

The cooper should know about tubs. But I learned about life as well, And you who loiter around these graves Think you know life. You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps, In truth you a...

Do you think that odes and sermons, And the ringing of church bells, And the blood of old men and young men, Martyred for the truth they saw With eyes made bright by faith in God, Accomplished the wor...

If you in the village think that my work was a good one, Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards, And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett, In many a crusade to purge the peopl...

I spent my money trying to elect you Mayor A. D. Blood. I lavished my admiration upon you, You were to my mind the almost perfect man. You devoured my personality, And the idealism of my youth, And th...

When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me I went to Springfield. There I met a lush, Whose father just deceased left him a fortune. He married me when drunk. My life was wretched. A year passed and on...

I was the milliner Talked about, lied about, Mother of Dora, Whose strange disappearance Was charged to her rearing. My eye quick to beauty Saw much beside ribbons And buckles and feathers And leghorn...

There is something about Death Like love itself! If with someone with whom you have known passion, And the glow of youthful love, You also, after years of life Together, feel the sinking of the fire, ...

Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions Eaten in my headstone by the wind and rain⁠— Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred Were marking scores against me, But to destroy, and not preserve,...

I had fiddled all day at the county fair. But driving home “Butch” Weldy and Jack McGuire, Who were roaring full, made me fiddle and fiddle To the song of “Susie Skinner,” while whipping the horses Ti...

I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later ...

Well, don’t you see this was the way of it: We bought the farm with what he inherited, And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning His father’s mind against the rest of them. And we never ha...

The very fall my sister Nancy Knapp Set fire to the house They were trying Dr. Duval For the murder of Zora Clemens, And I sat in the court two weeks Listening to every witness. It was clear he had go...

I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker, Smiter with whips and swords; I, hater of the breakers of the law; I, legalist, inexorable and bitter, Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden, Was m...

They first charged me with disorderly conduct, There being no statute on blasphemy. Later they locked me up as insane Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard. My offense was this: I said God l...

I could not run or play In boyhood. In manhood I could only sip the cup, Not drink⁠— For scarlet-fever left my heart diseased. Yet I lie here Soothed by a secret none but Mary knows: There is a garden...

If I could have lived another year I could have finished my flying machine, And become rich and famous. Hence it is fitting the workman Who tried to chisel a dove for me Made it look more like a chick...

I was attorney for the “Q” And the Indemnity Company which insured The owners of the mine. I pulled the wires with judge and jury, And the upper courts, to beat the claims Of the crippled, the widow a...

I, born in Weimar Of a mother who was French And German father, a most learned professor, Orphaned at fourteen years, Became a dancer, known as Russian Sonia, All up and down the boulevards of Paris, ...

Doc Meyers said I had satyriasis, And Doc Hill called it leucaemia⁠— But I know what brought me here: I was sixty-four but strong as a man Of thirty-five or forty. And it wasn’t writing a letter a day...

If the excursion train to Peoria Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with my life⁠— Certainly I should have escaped this place. But as it was burned as well, they mistook me For John Allen who...

Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel⁠— Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens⁠— But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof. Triolets, villanelles, rondels...

Almost the shell of a woman after the surgeon’s knife! And almost a year to creep back into strength, Till the dawn of our wedding decennial Found me my seeming self again. We walked the forest togeth...

Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him For the sake of the children, And Judge Somers advised him the same. So we stuck to the end of the path. But two of the children thought he was right, And ...

To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty. It may serve a turn in your life. My husband had nothing to do With the fall of the bank⁠—he was only cashier. The wreck ...

I preached four thousand sermons, I conducted forty revivals, And baptized many converts. Yet no deed of mine Shines brighter in the memory of the world, And none is treasured more by me: Look how I s...

This I saw with my own eyes: A cliff-swallow Made her nest in a hole of the high clay-bank There near Miller’s Ford. But no sooner were the young hatched Than a snake crawled up to the nest To devour ...

I had no objection at all To selling my household effects at auction On the village square. It gave my beloved flock the chance To get something which had belonged to me For a memorial. But that trunk...

My valiant fight! For I call it valiant, With my father’s beliefs from old Virginia: Hating slavery, but no less war. I, full of spirit, audacity, courage Thrown into life here in Spoon River, With it...

Suppose you stood just five feet two, And had worked your way as a grocery clerk, Studying law by candle light Until you became an attorney at law? And then suppose through your diligence, And regular...

Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one Because his children were all failures. But I know of a fate more trying than that: It is to be a failure while your children are successes. For I raised a brood...

Why did Albert Schirding kill himself Trying to be County Superintendent of Schools, Blest as he was with the means of life And wonderful children, bringing him honor Ere he was sixty? If even one of ...

Have any of you, passers-by, Had an old tooth that was an unceasing discomfort? Or a pain in the side that never quite left you? Or a malignant growth that grew with time? So that even in profoundest ...

They got me into the Sunday school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without a...

Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all ...

Dear Jane! dear winsome Jane! How you stole in the room (where I lay so ill) In your nurse’s cap and linen cuffs, And took my hand and said with a smile: “You are not so ill⁠—you’ll soon be well.” And...

Passer-by, To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one. When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul Then you have lost your soul. It is written: “I have a friend, But...

When I went to the city, Mary McNeely, I meant to return for you, yes I did. But Laura, my landlady’s daughter, Stole into my life somehow, and won me away. Then after some years whom should I meet Bu...

A step-mother drove me from home, embittering me. A squaw-man, a flaneur and dilettante took my virtue. For years I was his mistress⁠—no one knew. I learned from him the parasite cunning With which I ...

Very well, you liberals, And navigators into realms intellectual, You sailors through heights imaginative, Blown about by erratic currents, tumbling into air pockets, You Margaret Fuller Slacks, Petit...

After I had attended lectures At our Chautauqua, and studied French For twenty years, committing the grammar Almost by heart, I thought I’d take a trip to Paris To give my culture a final polish. So I...

I lost my patronage in Spoon River From trying to put my mind in the camera To catch the soul of the person. The very best picture I ever took Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law. He sat upright and ...

While I was handling Dom Pedro I got at the thing that divides the race between men who are For singing “Turkey in the Straw” or “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”⁠— (Like Rile Potter used to sin...

I grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men. If I saw a soul that was strong I wounded its pride and devoured its strength. The shelters of friendship knew my cunning, For where I could steal a...

I was a peasant girl from Germany, Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong. And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene’s. On a summer’s day when she was away He stole into the kitchen and took me Rig...

I was the only child of Frances Harris of Virginia And Thomas Greene of Kentucky, Of valiant and honorable blood both. To them I owe all that I became, Judge, member of Congress, leader in the State. ...

My mind was a mirror: It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. In youth my mind was just a mirror In a rapidly flying car, Which catches and loses bits of the landscape. Then in time Great scratches ...

Oh many times did Ernest Hyde and I Argue about the freedom of the will. My favorite metaphor was Prickett’s cow Roped out to grass, and free you know as far As the length of the rope. One day while a...

Not character, not fortitude, not patience Were mine, the which the village thought I had In bearing with my wife, while preaching on, Doing the work God chose for me. I loathed her as a termagant, as...

The secret of the stars⁠—gravitation. The secret of the earth⁠—layers of rock. The secret of the soil⁠—to receive seed. The secret of the seed⁠—the germ. The secret of man⁠—the sower. The secret of wo...

I was crushed between Altgeld and Armour. I lost many friends, much time and money Fighting for Altgeld whom Editor Whedon Denounced as the candidate of gamblers and anarchists. Then Armour started to...

A chaplain in the army, A chaplain in the prisons, An exhorter in Spoon River, Drunk with divinity, Spoon River⁠— Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame, And myself to scorn and wretchedness. But wh...

Yes, here I lie close to a stunted rose bush In a forgotten place near the fence Where the thickets from Siever’s woods Have crept over, growing sparsely. And you, you are a leader in New York, The wi...

As to democracy, fellow citizens, Are you not prepared to admit That I, who inherited riches and was to the manor born, Was second to none in Spoon River In my devotion to the cause of Liberty? While ...

Both for the country and for the man, And for a country as well as a man, ’Tis better to be feared than loved. And if this country would rather part With the friendship of every nation Than surrender ...

Neither spite, fellow citizens, Nor forgetfulness of the shiftlessness, And the lawlessness and waste Under democracy’s rule in Spoon River Made me desert the party of law and order And lead the liber...

Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown Who lies here with no stone to mark the place. As a boy reckless and wanton, Wandering with gun in hand through the forest Near the mansion of Aaro...

In youth my wings were strong and tireless, But I did not know the mountains. In age I knew the mountains But my weary wings could not follow my vision⁠— Genius is wisdom and youth....

After you have enriched your soul To the highest point, With books, thought, suffering, the understanding of many personalities, The power to interpret glances, silences, The pauses in momentous trans...

I was the Widow McFarlane, Weaver of carpets for all the village. And I pity you still at the loom of life, You who are singing to the shuttle And lovingly watching the work of your hands, If you reac...

The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked, And I was tarred and feathered, For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago: “I saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes Stan...

To be able to see every side of every question; To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long; To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose, To use great feelings and passions of the human f...

Rhodes’ slave! Selling shoes and gingham, Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days For more than twenty years. Saying “Yes’m” and ...

The sudden death of Eugene Carman Put me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month, And I told my wife and children that night. But it didn’t come, and so I thought Old Rhodes suspected me of st...

Vegetarian, non-resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian; Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll; Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan; Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treache...

Everyone laughed at Col. Prichard For buying an engine so powerful That it wrecked itself, and wrecked the grinder He ran it with. But here is a joke of cosmic size: The urge of nature that made a man...

All they said was true: I wrecked my father’s bank with my loans To dabble in wheat; but this was true⁠— I was buying wheat for him as well, Who couldn’t margin the deal in his name Because of his chu...

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 fat...

I was sick, but more than that, I was mad At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life. So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria: “I am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River, Gradually was...

I staggered on through darkness, There was a hazy sky, a few stars Which I followed as best I could. It was nine o’clock, I was trying to get home. But somehow I was lost, Though really keeping the ro...

She loved me. Oh! how she loved me! I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me. But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out, Or she might di...

He ran away and was gone for a year. When he came home he told me the silly story Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan And kept in chains so he could not write me. I pretended to believe it,...

I was well known and much beloved And rich, as fortunes are reckoned In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked. That was the home for me, Though all my children had flown afar⁠— Which is the way of...

Mr. Kessler, you know, was in the army, And he drew six dollars a month as a pension, And stood on the corner talking politics, Or sat at home reading Grant’s Memoirs; And I supported the family by wa...

Out of the lights and roar of cities, Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River, Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken, The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt, But to hide a wounded pr...

I winged my bird, Though he flew toward the setting sun; But just as the shot rang out, he soared Up and up through the splinters of golden light, Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled, With som...

I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk: One, the house I built on the hill, With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate; The other, the lake-front in Chicago, Where the railroad keeps a...

I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins, Born in a cottage near the grist-mill, Reared in the mansion there on the hill, With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate. How proud my mother was of the ...

My name used to be in the papers daily As having dined somewhere, Or traveled somewhere, Or rented a house in Paris, Where I entertained the nobility. I was forever eating or traveling, Or taking the ...

Did my widow flit about From Mackinac to Los Angeles, Resting and bathing and sitting an hour Or more at the table over soup and meats And delicate sweets and coffee? I was cut down in my prime From o...

How did you feel, you libertarians, Who spent your talents rallying noble reasons Around the saloon, as if Liberty Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar Or at a table, guzzling? How did you f...

My parents thought that I would be As great as Edison or greater: For as a boy I made balloons And wondrous kites and toys with clocks And little engines with tracks to run on And telephones of cans a...

I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard, For I tried the rights of property, Although by lamp-light, for thirty years, In that poker room in the opera house. And I say ...

If the learned Supreme Court of Illinois Got at the secret of every case As well as it does a case of rape It would be the greatest court in the world. A jury, of neighbors mostly, with “Butch” Weldy ...

I wanted to go away to college But rich Aunt Persis wouldn’t help me. So I made gardens and raked the lawns And bought John Alden’s books with my earnings And toiled for the very means of life. I want...

I would I had thrust my hands of flesh Into the disk-flowers bee-infested, Into the mirror-like core of fire Of the light of life, the sun of delight. For what are anthers worth or petals Or halo-rays...

Reading in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys, Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela, The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne, And the wrath of T...

Observe the clasped hands! Are they hands of farewell or greeting, Hands that I helped or hands that helped me? Would it not be well to carve a hand With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus? And yonder...

I tried to win the nomination For president of the County-board And I made speeches all over the County Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival, As an enemy of the people, In league with the master-foes o...

Horses and men are just alike. There was my stallion, Billy Lee, Black as a cat and trim as a deer, With an eye of fire, keen to start, And he could hit the fastest speed Of any racer around Spoon Riv...

There would be a knock at the door And I would arise at midnight and go to the shop, Where belated travelers would hear me hammering Sepulchral boards and tacking satin. And often I wondered who would...

I bought every kind of machine that’s known⁠— Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers, Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers⁠— And all of them stood in the rain and sun, Getting rusted, warped and ba...

My mother was for woman’s rights And my father was the rich miller at London Mills. I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them. When my father died, I set out to see peoples and cou...

I looked like Abraham Lincoln. I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship, But standing for the rights of property and for order. A regular church attendant, Sometimes appearing in your town mee...

Why did you bruise me with your rough places If you did not want me to tell you about them? And stifle me with your stupidities, If you did not want me to expose them? And nail me with the nails of cr...

Here! You sons of the men Who fought with Washington at Valley Forge, And whipped Black Hawk at Starved Rock, Arise! Do battle with the descendants of those Who bought land in the loop when it was was...

How many times, during the twenty years I was your leader, friends of Spoon River, Did you neglect the convention and caucus, And leave the burden on my hands Of guarding and saving the people’s cause...

Nothing in life is alien to you: I was a penniless girl from Summum Who stepped from the morning train in Spoon River. All the houses stood before me with closed doors And drawn shades⁠—l was barred o...

When I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring minds, Was sold at auction on the public square, As if to destroy the last vestige Of my me...

It was only a little house of two rooms⁠— Almost like a child’s play-house⁠— With scarce five acres of ground around it; And I had so many children to feed And school and clothe, and a wife who was si...

I sat on the bank above Bernadotte And dropped crumbs in the water, Just to see the minnows bump each other, Until the strongest got the prize. Or I went to my little pasture, Where the peaceful swine...

When I first came to Spoon River I did not know whether what they told me Was true or false. They would bring me the epitaph And stand around the shop while I worked And say “He was so kind,” “He was ...

It was moonlight, and the earth sparkled With new-fallen frost. It was midnight and not a soul abroad. Out of the chimney of the courthouse A gray-hound of smoke leapt and chased The northwest wind. I...

The buzzards wheel slowly In wide circles, in a sky Faintly hazed as from dust from the road. And a wind sweeps through the pasture where I lie Beating the grass into long waves. My kite is above the ...

There is the caw of a crow, And the hesitant song of a thrush. There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away, And the voice of a plowman on Shipley’s hill. The forest beyond the orchard is still With mids...

Is it true, Spoon River, That in the hall-way of the New Court House There is a tablet of bronze Containing the embossed faces Of Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhodes? And is it true that my successful lab...

The white men played all sorts of jokes on me. They took big fish off my hook And put little ones on, while I was away Getting a stringer, and made me believe I hadn’t seen aright the fish I had caugh...

I made two fights for the people. First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon Of independence, for reform, and was defeated. Next I used my rebel strength To capture the standard of my old party⁠— And...

The bank broke and I lost my savings. I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River And I made up my mind to run away And leave my place in life and my family; But just as the midnight train pulled i...

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, A...

I reached the highest place in Spoon River, But through what bitterness of spirit! The face of my father, sitting speechless, Child-like, watching his canaries, And looking at the courthouse window Of...

Why was I not devoured by self-contempt, And rotted down by indifference And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones? Why, with all of my errant steps, Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke? And why, th...

My thanks, friends of the County Scientific Association, For this modest boulder, And its little tablet of bronze. Twice I tried to join your honored body, And was rejected, And when my little brochur...

What do you see now? Globes of red, yellow, purple. Just a moment! And now? My father and mother and sisters. Yes! And now? Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces. Try this. A field of grain⁠—a ...

Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor? For when the returns began to come in And Cleveland was sweeping the East, It was too much for you, poor old heart, Who had striven for democracy In the long, lo...

I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, I was ashamed of you. I despised you As the place of my nativity. And there in Rome, among the artists, Speaking Italian, speaking French, I seem...

At first I suspected something⁠— She acted so calm and absent-minded. And one day I heard the back door shut, As I entered the front, and I saw him slink Back of the smokehouse into the lot, And run a...

Silent before the jury, Returning no word to the judge when he asked me If I had aught to say against the sentence, Only shaking my head. What could I say to people who thought That a woman of thirty-...

What but the love of God could have softened And made forgiving the people of Spoon River Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt And murdered him beside? Oh, loving hearts that took me in aga...

Dust of my dust, And dust with my dust, O, child who died as you entered the world, Dead with my death! Not knowing Breath, though you tried so hard, With a heart that beat when you lived with me, And...

We stand about this place⁠—we, the memories; And shade our eyes because we dread to read: “June 17th, 1884, aged 21 years and 3 days.” And all things are changed. And we⁠—we, the memories, stand here ...

The pine woods on the hill, And the farmhouse miles away, Showed clear as though behind a lens Under a sky of peacock blue! But a blanket of cloud by afternoon Muffled the earth. And you walked the ro...

You are over there, Father Malloy, Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave, Not here with us on the hill⁠— Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins...

Not “a youth with hoary head and haggard eye,” But an old man with a smooth skin And black hair! I had the face of a boy as long as I lived, And for years a soul that was stiff and bent, In a world wh...

Ye who are kicking against Fate, Tell me how it is that on this hill-side Running down to the river, Which fronts the sun and the south-wind, This plant draws from the air and soil Poison and becomes ...

Whoever thou art who passest by Know that my father was gentle, And my mother was violent, While I was born the whole of such hostile halves, Not intermixed and fused, But each distinct, feebly solder...

You never understood, O unknown one, Why it was I repaid Your devoted friendship and delicate ministrations First with diminished thanks, Afterward by gradually withdrawing my presence from you, So th...

I was a gun-smith in Odessa. One night the police broke in the room Where a group of us were reading Spencer. And seized our books and arrested us. But I escaped and came to New York And thence to Chi...

I was the Sunday school superintendent, The dummy president of the wagon works And the canning factory, Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique; My son the cashier of the bank, Wedded to Rhode...

I was just turned twenty-one, And Henry Phipps, the Sunday school superintendent, Made a speech in Bindle’s Opera House. “The honor of the flag must be upheld,” he said, “Whether it be assailed by a b...

Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing, One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing, Lengthening out the farewell to me of...

The idea danced before us as a flag; The sound of martial music; The thrill of carrying a gun; Advancement in the world on coming home; A glint of glory, wrath for foes; A dream of duty to country or ...

Harry Wilmans! You who fell in a swamp Near Manila, following the flag, You were not wounded by the greatness of a dream, Or destroyed by ineffectual work, Or driven to madness by Satanic snags; You w...

You may think, passer-by, that Fate Is a pit-fall outside of yourself, Around which you may walk by the use of foresight And wisdom. Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men, As one who in God...

With our hearts like drifting suns, had we but walked, As often before, the April fields till star-light Silkened over with viewless gauze the darkness Under the cliff, our trysting place in the wood,...

Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music; “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a n...

In a lingering fever many visions come to you: I was in the little house again With its great yard of clover Running down to the board-fence, Shadowed by the oak tree, Where we children had our swing....

Your red blossoms amid green leaves Are drooping, beautiful geranium! But you do not ask for water. You cannot speak! You do not need to speak⁠— Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst, Yet they d...

There by the window in the old house Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley, My days of labor closed, sitting out life’s decline, Day by day did I look in my memory, As one who gazes in an ...

Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter and Spring After each other drifting, past my window drifting! And I lay so many years watching them drift and counting The years till a terror came in my heart at t...

They brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge. And sometimes one sat for me⁠— Someone who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic. What was it in their e...

I wrote him a letter asking him for old times’ sake To discharge my sick boy from the army; But maybe he couldn’t read it. Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a ...

I went to the dances at Chandlerville, And played snap-out at Winchester. One time we changed partners, Driving home in the moonlight of middle June, And then I found Davis. We were married and lived ...

Suppose it is nothing but the hive: That there are drones and workers And queens, and nothing but storing honey⁠— (Material things as well as culture and wisdom)⁠— For the next generation, this genera...

Did I follow Truth wherever she led, And stand against the whole world for a cause, And uphold the weak against the strong? If I did I would be remembered among men As I was known in life among the pe...

Not, where the stairway turns in the dark, A hooded figure, shriveled under a flowing cloak! Not yellow eyes in the room at night, Staring out from a surface of cobweb gray! And not the flap of a cond...

This weeping willow! Why do you not plant a few For the millions of children not yet born, As well as for us? Are they not non-existent, or cells asleep Without mind? Or do they come to earth, their b...

There at Geneva where Mt. Blanc floated above The wine-hued lake like a cloud, when a breeze was blown Out of an empty sky of blue, and the roaring Rhone Hurried under the bridge through chasms of roc...

You observe the carven hand With the index finger pointing heavenward. That is the direction, no doubt. But how shall one follow it? It is well to abstain from murder and lust, To forgive, do good to ...

I was the laughing-stock of the village, Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves⁠— Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek The same as English. For instead of talking ...

Why are you running so fast hither and thither Chasing midges or butterflies? Some of you are standing solemnly scratching for grubs; Some of you are waiting for corn to be scattered. This is life, is...

I began with Sir William Hamilton’s lectures. Then studied Dugald Stewart; And then John Locke on the Understanding, And then Descartes, Fichte and Schelling, Kant and then Schopenhauer⁠— Books I borr...

I who kept the greenhouse, Lover of trees and flowers, Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm, Measuring its generous branches with my eye, And listened to its rejoicing leaves Lovingly patting each othe...

Samuel is forever talking of his elm⁠— But I did not need to die to learn about roots: I, who dug all the ditches about Spoon River. Look at my elm! Sprung from as good a seed as his, Sown at the same...

Once in a while a curious weed unknown to me, Needing a name from my books; Once in a while a letter from Yeomans. Out of the mussel-shells gathered along the shore Sometimes a pearl with a glint like...

To all in the village I seemed, no doubt, To go this way and that way, aimlessly. But here by the river you can see at twilight The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there⁠— They must fly so to ca...

Whenever the Presbyterian bell Was rung by itself, I knew it as the Presbyterian bell. But when its sound was mingled With the sound of the Methodist, the Christian, The Baptist and the Congregational...

At first you will know not what they mean, And you may never know, And we may never tell you:⁠— These sudden flashes in your soul, Like lambent lightning on snowy clouds At midnight when the moon is f...

God! ask me not to record your wonders, I admit the stars and the suns And the countless worlds. But I have measured their distances And weighed them and discovered their substances. I have devised wi...

I was Willie Metcalf. They used to call me “Doctor Meyers” Because, they said, I looked like him. And he was my father, according to Jack McGuire. I lived in the livery stable, Sleeping on the floor S...

They called me the weakling, the simpleton, For my brothers were strong and beautiful, While I, the last child of parents who had aged, Inherited only their residue of power. But they, my brothers, we...

Ye young debaters over the doctrine Of the soul’s immortality, I who lie here was the village atheist, Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments Of the infidels. But through a long sickness Coug...

In the lust of my strength I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me: I might as well have cursed the stars. In my last sickness I was in agony, but I was resolute And I cursed God for my suffering...

Toward the last The truth of others was untruth to me; The justice of others injustice to me; Their reasons for death, reasons with me for life; Their reasons for life, reasons with me for death; I wo...

They laughed at me as “Prof. Moon,” As a boy in Spoon River, born with the thirst Of knowing about the stars. They jeered when I spoke of the lunar mountains, And the thrilling heat and cold, And the ...

At four o’clock in late October I sat alone in the country school-house Back from the road ’mid stricken fields, And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane, And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stov...

Do you remember, passer-by, the path I wore across the lot where now stands the opera house, Hasting with swift feet to work through many years? Take its meaning to heart: You too may walk, after the ...

Back and forth, back and forth, to and from the church, With my Bible under my arm ’Till I was gray and old; Unwedded, alone in the world, Finding brothers and sisters in the congregation, And childre...

“What will you do when you come to die, If all your life long you have rejected Jesus, And know as you lie there, He is not your friend?” Over and over I said, I, the revivalist. Ah, yes! but there ar...

After a long day of work in my hot-houses Sleep was sweet, but if you sleep on your left side Your dreams may be abruptly ended. I was among my flowers where someone Seemed to be raising them on trial...

Did you ever see an alligator Come up to the air from the mud, Staring blindly under the full glare of noon? Have you seen the stabled horses at night Tremble and start back at the sight of a lantern?...

Oh, you young radicals and dreamers, You dauntless fledglings Who pass by my headstone, Mock not its record of my captaincy in the army And my faith in God! They are not denials of each other. Go by r...

Passer-by, sin beyond any sin Is the sin of blindness of souls to other souls. And joy beyond any joy is the joy Of having the good in you seen, and seeing the good At the miraculous moment! Here I co...

Who carved this shattered harp on my stone? I died to you, no doubt. But how many harps and pianos Wired I and tightened and disentangled for you, Making them sweet again⁠—with tuning fork or without?...

On a mountain top above the clouds That streamed like a sea below me I said that peak is the thought of Buddha, And that one is the prayer of Jesus, And this one is the dream of Plato, And that one th...

In the last spring I ever knew, In those last days, I sat in the forsaken orchard Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered The hills at Miller’s Ford; Just to muse on the apple tree With its ruined t...

Better than granite, Spoon River, Is the memory-picture you keep of me Standing before the pioneer men and women There at Concord Church on Communion day. Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth...

They told me I had three months to live, So I crept to Bernadotte, And sat by the mill for hours and hours Where the gathered waters deeply moving Seemed not to move: O world, that’s you! You are but ...

I was among multitudes of children Dancing at the foot of a mountain. A breeze blew out of the east and swept them as leaves, Driving some up the slopes.⁠ ⁠… All was changed. Here were flying lights, ...

Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo, The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M’Grew Cried, “There’s a ghost,” and I, “It’s Delphic Apollo”; And the son of the banker derided us, saying, “It’s light By...

Of John Cabanis’ wrath and of the strife Of hostile parties, and his dire defeat Who led the common people in the cause Of freedom for Spoon River, and the fall Of Rhodes’ bank that brought unnumbered...

The graveyard of Spoon River. Two voices are heard behind a screen decorated with diabolical and angelic figures in various allegorical relations. A faint light shows dimly through the screen as if it...

Author of The Spooniad. ↩ See Jonathan Swift Somers. ↩...