Blind Jack

    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
    Till they ran away. Blind as I was, I tried to get out
    As the carriage fell in the ditch,
    And was caught in the wheels and killed.
    There's a blind man here with a brow
    As big and white as a cloud.
    And all we fiddlers, from highest to lowest,
    Writers of music and tellers of stories
    Sit at his feet,
    And hear him sing of the fall of Troy.

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

Le Roy Goldman

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Alma Bell To The Coroner

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Fiddler Jones

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Major And Elenor Murray At Nice

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Blind

Amid the din of cars and automobiles,
At the corner of a towering pile of granite,
Under the city's soaring brick and stone,
Where multitudes go hurrying by, you stand
With eyeless sockets playing on a flute.
And an old woman holds the cup for you,
Wherein a curious passer by at times
Casts a poor coin.

You are so blind you cannot see us men
As walking trees!
I fancy from the tune
You play upon the flute, you have a vision
Of leafy trees along a country road-side,
Where wheat is growing and the meadow-larks
Rise singing in the sun-shine!
In your darkness
You may see such things playing on your flute
Here in the granite ways of mad Chicago!

And here's another on a farther corner,
With head thrown back as if he searched the skies,

Edgar Lee Masters

Fiddler Jones

    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 meadow to walk through to the river?
    The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands
    For beeves hereafter ready for market;
    Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
    Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
    To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
    Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;
    They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
    Stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor."
    How could I till my forty acres
    Not to speak of getting more,
    With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
    Stirred in my brain by crows and robi...

Edgar Lee Masters

The Hill

    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 mine,
    One was killed in a brawl,
    One died in a jail,
    One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife -
    All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

    Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith,
    The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one? -
    All, all are sleeping on the hill.

    One died in shameful child-birth,
    One of a thwarted love,
    One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,
    One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire;
    One after li...

Edgar Lee Masters

Butch" Weldy

    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 soldering irons.
    And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
    Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
    One morning, as I stood there pouring,
    The air grew still and seemed to heave,
    And I shot up as the tank exploded,
    And down I came with both legs broken,
    And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs.
    For someone left a blow - fire going,
    And something sucked the flame in the tank.
    The Circuit Judge said whoever did it
    Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so
    Old Rhodes' son didn't have to pay me.
 ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Oscar Hummel

    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 road.
    Then I reeled through a gate and into a yard,
    And called at the top of my voice:
    "Oh, Fiddler! Oh, Mr. Jones!"
    (I thought it was his house and he would show me the way home. )
    But who should step out but A. D. Blood,
    In his night shirt, waving a stick of wood,
    And roaring about the cursed saloons,
    And the criminals they made?
    "You drunken Oscar Hummel", he said,
    As I stood there weaving to and fro,
    Taking the blows from the stick in his hand
    Till I dropped down dead at his feet.

Edgar Lee Masters

The Lunger

    Jack would laugh an' joke all day;
    Never saw a lad so gay;
    Singin' like a medder lark,
    Loaded to the Plimsoll mark
    With God's sunshine was that boy;
    Had a strangle-holt on Joy.
    Held his head 'way up in air,
    Left no callin' cards on Care;
    Breezy, buoyant, brave and true;
    Sent his sunshine out to you;
    Cheerfulest when clouds was black -
    Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack!

    Sittin' in my shack alone
    I could hear him in his own,
    Singin' far into the night,
    Till it didn't seem just right
    One man should corral the fun,
    Live his life so in the sun;
    Didn't seem quite natural
    Not to have a grouch at all;
    Not a trouble, not a lack -
    Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack!

Robert William Service