Arlo Will

    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?
    Have you ever walked in darkness
    When an unknown door was open before you
    And you stood, it seemed, in the light of a thousand candles
    Of delicate wax?
    Have you walked with the wind in your ears
    And the sunlight about you
    And found it suddenly shine with an inner splendor?
    Out of the mud many times
    Before many doors of light
    Through many fields of splendor,
    Where around your steps a soundless glory scatters
    Like new - fallen snow,
    Will you go through earth, O strong of soul,
    And through unnumbered heavens
    To the final flame!

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

Roger Heston

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Henry Tripp

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

James Garber

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Portrait Of A Woman

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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What You Will

    April rain, delicious weeping,
        Washes white bones from the grave,
    Long enough have they been sleeping.
        They are cleansed, and now they crave
    Once more on the earth to gather
    Pleasure from the springtime weather.

    The pine trees and the long dark grass
        Feed on what is placed below.
    Think you not that there doth pass
        In them something we did know?
    This spell, well, friends, I greet ye once again
    With joy, but with a most unuttered pain.

Edgar Lee Masters

The Landscape

You and your landscape! There it lies
Stripped, resuming its disguise,
Clothed in dreams, made bare again,
Symbol infinite of pain,
Rapture, magic, mystery
Of vanished days and days to be.
There's its sea of tidal grass
Over which the south winds pass,
And the sun-set's Tuscan gold
Which the distant windows hold
For an instant like a sphere
Bursting ere it disappear.
There's the dark green woods which throve
In the spell of Leese's Grove.
And the winding of the road;
And the hill o'er which the sky
Stretched its pallied vacancy
Ere the dawn or evening glowed.
And the wonder of the town
Somewhere from the hill-top down
Nestling under hills and woods
And the meadow's solitudes.

        *        *        *        *        *

Edgar Lee Masters

The Vision

    Of that dear vale where you and I have lain
    Scanning the mysteries of life and death
    I dreamed, though how impassable the space
    Of time between the present and the past!
    This was the vision that possessed my mind;
    I thought the weird and gusty days of March
    Had eased themselves in melody and peace.
    Pale lights, swift shadows, lucent stalks, clear streams,
    Cool, rosy eves behind the penciled mesh
    Of hazel thickets, and the huge feathered boughs
    Of walnut trees stretched singing to the blast;
    And the first pleasantries of sheep and kine;
    The cautioned twitterings of hidden birds;
    The flight of geese among the scattered clouds;
    Night's weeping stars and all the pageantries
    Of awakened life had blossomed i...

Edgar Lee Masters

Webster Ford

    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 the flags at the water's edge, you half-witted fools."
    And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long after
    Poor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his death
    Down, down, through bellowing darkness, I carried
    The vision which perished with him like a rocket which falls
    And quenches its light in earth, and hid it for fear
    Of the son of the banker, calling on Plutus to save me?
    Avenged were you for the shame of a fearful heart
    Who left me alone till I saw you again in an hour
    When I seemed to be turned to a tree...

Edgar Lee Masters

The Door

    This is the room that thou wast ushered in.
    Wouldst thou, perchance, a larger freedom win?
    Wouldst thou escape for deeper or no breath?
    There is no door but death.

    Do shadows crouch within the mocking light?
    Stand thou! but if thy terrored heart takes flight
    Facing maimed Hope and wide-eyed Nevermore,
    There is no less one door.

    Dost thou bewail love's end and friendship's doom,
    The dying fire, drained cup, and gathering gloom?
    Explore the walls, if thy soul ventureth,
    There is no door but death.

    There is no window. Heaven hangs aloof
    Above the rents within the stairless roof.
    Hence, soul, be brave across the ruined floor,
    Who knocks? Unbolt the door!

Edgar Lee Masters

Botanical Gardens

He follows me no more, I said, nor stands
Beside me. And I wake these later days
In an April mood, a wonder light and free.
The vision is gone, but gone the constant pain
Of constant thought. I see dawn from my hill,
And watch the lights which fingers from the waters
Twine from the sun or moon. Or look across
The waste of bays and marshes to the woods,
Under the prism colors of the air,
Held in a vacuum silence, where the clouds,
Like cyclop hoods are tossed against the sky
In terrible glory.

        And earth charmed I lie
Before the staring sphinx whose musing face
Is this Egyptian heaven, and whose eyes
Are separate clouds of gold, whose pedestal
Is earth, whose silken sheathed claws
No longer toy with me, even while I stroke them:
Since I h...

Edgar Lee Masters