Cassius Hueffer

    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 read this empty rhetoric.
    My epitaph should have been:
    "Life was not gentle to him,
    And the elements so mixed in him
    That he made warfare on life
    In the which he was slain."
    While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues,
    Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph
    Graven by a fool!

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

The Cocked Hat

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Edith Conant

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Many Soldiers

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Ace" Shaw

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Percival Sharp

    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 is a broken chain,
    The weakest-link idea perhaps - but what was it?
    And lambs, some lying down,
    Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd -
    Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up -
    Why not chisel a few shambles?
    And fallen columns!
    Carve the pedestal, please,
    Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall.
    And compasses and mathematical instruments,
    In irony of the under tenants, ignorance
    Of determinants and the calculus of variations.
    And anchors, for those who never s...

Edgar Lee Masters

Richard Bone

    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 so wonderful,"
    "She was the sweetest woman," "He was a consistent Christian."
    And I chiseled for them whatever they wished,
    All in ignorance of the truth.
    But later, as I lived among the people here,
    I knew how near to the life
    Were the epitaphs that were ordered for them as they died.
    But still I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel
    And made myself party to the false chronicles
    Of the stones,
    Even as the historian does who writes
    Without knowing the truth,
    Or because he is influenced...

Edgar Lee Masters

On A Bust

    Your speeches seemed to answer for the nonce,
    They do not justify your head in bronze!
    Your essays! talent's failures were to you
    Your philosophic gamut, but things true,
    Or beautiful, oh never! What's the pons
    For you to cross to fame? Your head in bronze?

    What has the artist caught? The sensual chin
    That melts away in weakness from the skin,
    Sagging from your indifference of mind;
    The sullen mouth that sneers at human kind
    For lack of genius to create or rule;
    The superficial scorn that says "you fool!"
    The deep-set eyes that have the mud-cat look
    Which might belong to Tolstoi or a crook.
    The nose half-thickly fleshed and half in point,
    And lightly turned awry as out of joint;
    The eyeb...

Edgar Lee Masters

The Sorrow Of Dead Faces

    I have seen many faces changed by the Sculptor Death,
    But never a face like Harold's who passed in a throe of pain.
    There were maidens and youths in the bud, and men in the lust of life;
    And women whom child-birth racked till the crying soul slipped through;
    Patriarchs withered with age and nuns ascetical white;
    And one who wasted her virgin wealth in a riot of joy.
    Brothers and sisters at last in a quiet and purple pall,
    Fellow voyagers bound to a port on an ash-blue sea,
    Locked in an utterless grief, in a mystery fearful to dream.
    All of these I have seen, but the face of Harold the bold
    Looked with a penitent pallor and stared with a sad surprise.

    For now at last he was still who never knew rest in life.
    And the ardent ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Two Monuments.

    Two men were born the self-same hour:
    The one was heir to untold wealth,
    To pride of birth and love of power;
    The other's heritage was health.

    A sturdy frame, an honest heart,
    Of human sympathy a store,
    A strength and will to do his part,
    A nature wholesome to the core.

    The two grew up to man's estate,
    And took their places in the strife:
    One found a sphere both wide and great,
    One found the toil and stress of life.

    Fate is a partial jade, I trow;
    She threw the rich man gold and frame,
    The laurel wreath to deck his brow,
    High place, the multitude's acclaim.

    The common things the other had -
    The common hopes to thrill him deep,
    The common joys to make h...

Jean Blewett

Jefferson Howard

    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 its dominant forces drawn from
    New England, Republicans, Calvinists, merchants, bankers,
    Hating me, yet fearing my arm.
    With wife and children heavy to carry -
    Yet fruits of my very zest of life.
    Stealing odd pleasures that cost me prestige,
    And reaping evils I had not sown;
    Foe of the church with its charnel dankness,
    Friend of the human touch of the tavern;
    Tangled with fates all alien to me,
    Deserted by hands I called my own.
    Then just as I felt my giant strength
    Short of breath, behold ...

Edgar Lee Masters