Aner Clute

    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 the start of it.
    Well, I told them a silk dress,
    And a promise of marriage from a rich man -
    (It was Lucius Atherton).
    But that was not really it at all.
    Suppose a boy steals an apple
    From the tray at the grocery store,
    And they all begin to call him a thief,
    The editor, minister, judge, and all the people -
    "A thief," "a thief," "a thief," wherever he goes
    And he can't get work, and he can't get bread
    Without stealing it, why the boy will steal.
    It's the way the people regard the theft of the apple
    That makes the boy what he is.

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. Born in Kansas and raised in Illinois, Masters is best known for his collection of poems entitled "Spoon River Anthology" (1915), which is a series of epitaphs of residents of the fictional small town of Spoon River. His works reflect the everyday lives and frustrations of middle America. Masters also practiced law and wrote biographies for historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Edgar Lee Masters

Bert Kessler

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Archibald Lowell

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Magrady Graham

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Hill

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Homer Clapp

    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 skating rink or the revival.
    No sooner did my departing footsteps die away
    Than Lucius Atherton,
    (So I learned when Aner went to Peoria)
    Stole in at her window, or took her riding
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    Into the country.
    The shock of it made me settle down
    And I put all the money I got from my father's estate
    Into the canning factory, to get the job
    Of head accountant, and lost it all.
    And then I knew I was one of Life's fools,
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Edgar Lee Masters

Ralph Rhodes

    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 church relationship.
    And while George Reece was serving his term
    I chased the will-o-the-wisp of women
    And the mockery of wine in New York.
    It's deathly to sicken of wine and women
    When nothing else is left in life.
    But suppose your head is gray, and bowed
    On a table covered with acrid stubs
    Of cigarettes and empty glasses,
    And a knock is heard, and you know it's the knock
    So long drowned out by popping corks
    And the pea-cock screams of demireps -
    And you look up, and there's your Theft,

Edgar Lee Masters

Alfred Moir

    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, though I stood at Burchard's bar,
    As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys
    To buy the drinks, did the curse of drink
    Fall on me like rain that runs off,
    Leaving the soul of me dry and clean?
    And why did I never kill a man Like Jack McGuire?
    But instead I mounted a little in life,
    And I owe it all to a book I read.
    But why did I go to Mason City,
    Where I chanced to see the book in a window,
    With its garish cover luring my eye?
    And why did my soul respond to the book,
    As I read it over and...

Edgar Lee Masters

Lucius Atherton

    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 new generation of girls
    Laughed at me, not fearing me,
    And I had no more exciting adventures
    Wherein I was all but shot for a heartless devil,
    But only drabby affairs, warmed-over affairs
    Of other days and other men.
    And time went on until I lived at
    Mayer's restaurant,
    Partaking of short-orders, a gray, untidy,
    Toothless, discarded, rural Don Juan. . . .
    There is a mighty shade here who sings
    Of one named Beatrice;
    And I see now that the force that made him great
    Drove...

Edgar Lee Masters

Clarence Fawcett

    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 stealing
    The blankets I took and sold on the side
    For money to pay a doctor's bill for my little girl.
    Then like a bolt old Rhodes accused me,
    And promised me mercy for my family's sake
    If I confessed, and so I confessed,
    And begged him to keep it out of the papers,
    And I asked the editors, too.
    That night at home the constable took me
    And every paper, except the Clarion,
    Wrote me up as a thief
    Because old Rhodes was an advertiser
    And wanted to make an example of me.
    Oh! well, you know how ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Walter Simmons

    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 and thread.
    I played the cornet and painted pictures,
    Modeled in clay and took the part
    Of the villain in the "Octoroon."
    But then at twenty - one I married
    And had to live, and so, to live
    I learned the trade of making watches
    And kept the jewelry store on the square,
    Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, -
    Not of business, but of the engine
    I studied the calculus to build.
    And all Spoon River watched and waited
    To see it work, but it never worked.
    And a few kind souls believed...

Edgar Lee Masters