Dora Williams

    When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me
    I went to Springfield. There I met a lush,
    Whose father just deceased left him a fortune.
    He married me when drunk.
    My life was wretched.
    A year passed and one day they found him dead.
    That made me rich. I moved on to Chicago.
    After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain.
    I moved on to New York. A gray-haired magnate
    Went mad about me - so another fortune.
    He died one night right in my arms, you know.
    (I saw his purple face for years thereafter. )
    There was almost a scandal.
    I moved on, This time to Paris. I was now a woman,
    Insidious, subtle, versed in the world and rich.
    My sweet apartment near the Champs Elysees
    Became a center for all sorts of people,
    Musicians, poets, dandies, artists, nobles,
    Where we spoke French and German, Italian, English.
    I wed Count Navigato, native of Genoa.
    We went to Rome. He poisoned me, I think.
    Now in the Campo Santo overlooking
    The sea where young Columbus dreamed new worlds,
    See what they chiseled: "Contessa Navigato
    Implora eterna quiete."

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

Thomas Trevelyan

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

So We Grew Together

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Alfred Moir

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Heaven Is But The Hour

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.

Roscoe Purkapile

    She loved me.
    Oh! how she loved me I never had a chance to escape
    From the day she first saw me.
    But then after we were married I thought
    She might prove her mortality and let me out,
    Or she might divorce me. But few die, none resign.
    Then I ran away and was gone a year on a lark.
    But she never complained. She said all would be well
    That I would return. And I did return.
    I told her that while taking a row in a boat
    I had been captured near Van Buren Street
    By pirates on Lake Michigan,
    And kept in chains, so I could not write her.
    She cried and kissed me, and said it was cruel,
    Outrageous, inhuman! I then concluded our marriage
    Was a divine dispensation
    And could not be dissolved,
    Exce...

Edgar Lee Masters

At Fairbanks

    Bill, look here! Here's the Times. You see this picture,
    Read if you like a little later. You never
    Heard how I came to Fairbanks, chanced to stay.
    It's eight years now. You see in nineteen eleven
    I lived in Hammond, Indiana, thought
    I'd like a trip, see mountains, see Alaska,
    Perhaps find fortune or a woman - well
    You know from your experience how it is.
    It was July and from the train I saw
    The Canadian Rockies, stopped at Banff a day,
    At Lake Louise, and so forth. At Vancouver
    Found travelers feasting, Englishmen in drink,
    Flirtations budding, coming into flower;
    And eager spirits waiting for the boat.
    Up to this time I hadn't made a friend,
    Stalked silently about along the streets,
    D...

Edgar Lee Masters

Georgine Sand Miner

    A stepmother drove me from home, embittering me.
    A squaw-man, a flaneur and dilettante took my virtue.
    For years I was his mistress - no one knew.
    I learned from him the parasite cunning
    With which I moved with the bluffs, like a flea on a dog.
    All the time I was nothing but "very private," with different men.
    Then Daniel, the radical, had me for years.
    His sister called me his mistress;
    And Daniel wrote me:
    "Shameful word, soiling our beautiful love!"
    But my anger coiled, preparing its fangs.
    My Lesbian friend next took a hand.
    She hated Daniel's sister.
    And Daniel despised her midget husband.
    And she saw a chance for a poisonous thrust:
    I must complain to the wife of Daniel's pursuit!
    But be...

Edgar Lee Masters

Loveridge Chase

    Here is the secret of the death of Elenor,
    From what I learn of her, from what I know
    In living, knowing women, I am clear
    About this Elenor Murray. Give me power
    To get the letters, power to give a bond
    To indemnify the company, for you know
    Letters belong to him who writes the letters;
    And if the company is given bond
    It will surrender them, and then you'll know
    What man she loved, this Gregory Wenner or
    Some other man, and if some other man,
    Whether he caused her death.

    The coroner
    And Loveridge Chase sat in the coroner's office
    And talked the matter over. And the coroner,
    Who knew this Loveridge Chase, was wondering
    Why Loveridge Chase had taken up the work
    Of secret service...

Edgar Lee Masters

Sea-Adventurers' Song.

("En partant du Golfe d'Otrante.")

[Bk. XXVIII.]


We told thirty when we started
From port so taut and fine,
But soon our crew were parted,
Till now we number nine.

Tom Robbins, English, tall and straight,
Left us at Aetna light;
He left us to investigate
What made the mountain bright;
"I mean to ask Old Nick himself,
(And here his eye he rolls)
If I can't bring Newcastle pelf
By selling him some coals!"

In Calabree, a lass and cup
Drove scowling Spada wild:
She only held her finger up,
And there he drank and smiled;
And over in Gaëta Bay,
Ascanio - ashore
A fool! - must wed a widow gay
Who'd buried three or four.

At Naples, woe! poor Ned they hanged -
Hemp neckcloth he disdained -

Victor-Marie Hugo

Tale Of Three Cities.

A seedy young man in Savanah
    Fell in love with a rich girl named Anna,
But her papa got mad
    And swore that "By Gad,
The fellow shall never Havana!"

But the couple eloped to Caracas,
    Where the Germans kicked up such a fracas;
And he said to his wife,
    "You can bet your sweet life
That papa dear never will track us."

Edwin C. Ranck