Daisy Fraser

    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 for suppressing the facts about the bank,
    When it was rotten and ready to break?
    Did you ever hear of the Circuit Judge
    Helping anyone except the "Q" railroad,
    Or the bankers? Or did Rev. Peet or Rev. Sibley
    Give any part of their salary, earned by keeping still,
    Or speaking out as the leaders wished them to do,
    To the building of the water works?
    But I    Daisy Fraser who always passed
    Along the street through rows of nods and smiles,
    And caughs and words such as "there she goes."
    Never was taken before Justice Arnett
    Without contributing ten dollars and costs
    To the school fund of Spoon River!

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 Sorrow Of Dead Faces

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Willie Metcalf

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Willard Fluke

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Harlan Sewall

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Elliott Hawkins

    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 meetings to warn you
    Against the evils of discontent and envy
    And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union,
    And to point to the peril of the Knights of Labor.
    My success and my example are inevitable influences
    In your young men and in generations to come,
    In spite of attacks of newspapers like the Clarion;
    A regular visitor at Springfield
    When the Legislature was in session
    To prevent raids upon the railroads
    And the men building up the state.
    Trusted by them and by you, Spoon River, equally
   ...

Edgar Lee Masters

E. C. Culbertson

    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 labors
    In the County Board, without which
    Not one stone would have been placed on another,
    And the contributions out of my own pocket
    To build the temple, are but memories among the people,
    Gradually fading away, and soon to descend
    With them to this oblivion where I lie?
    In truth, I can so believe.
    For it is a law of the Kingdom of Heaven
    That whoso enters the vineyard at the eleventh hour
    Shall receive a full day's pay.
    And it is a law of the Kingdom of this World
    That those who first op...

Edgar Lee Masters

A. D. Blood

    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 people of sin;
    Why do you let the milliner's daughter Dora,
    And the worthless son of Benjamin Pantier
    Nightly make my grave their unholy pillow?

Edgar Lee Masters

Searcy Foote

    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 wanted to marry Delia Prickett,
    But how could I do it with what I earned?
    And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy
    Who sat in a wheel-chair half alive
    With her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowed
    The soup ran out of her mouth like a duck -
    A gourmand yet, investing her income
    In mortgages, fretting all the time
    About her notes and rents and papers.
    That day I was sawing wood for her,
    And reading Proudhon in between.
    I went in the house for a drink of water,
    And there she sat asleep in ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Mrs. Williams

    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 leghorns and felts,
    To set off sweet faces,
    And dark hair and gold.
    One thing I will tell you
    And one I will ask:
    The stealers of husbands
    Wear powder and trinkets,
    And fashionable hats.
    Wives, wear them yourselves.
    Hats may make divorces -
    They also prevent them.
    Well now, let me ask you:
    If all of the children, born here in Spoon River
    Had been reared by the
    County, somewhere on a farm;
    And the fathers and mothers had been given their freed...

Edgar Lee Masters

Mrs. Kessler

    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 washing,
    Learning the secrets of all the people
    From their curtains, counterpanes, shirts and skirts.
    For things that are new grow old at length,
    They're replaced with better or none at all:
    People are prospering or falling back.
    And rents and patches widen with time;
    No thread or needle can pace decay,
    And there are stains that baffle soap,
    And there are colors that run in spite of you,
    Blamed though you are for spoiling a dress.
    Handkerchiefs, napery, have their secrets -
    The laundress, Life, know...

Edgar Lee Masters