Dorcas Gustine

    Vegetarian, non - resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian;
    Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll.
    Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan.
    Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain,
    Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing for laughter;
    With heart cored out by the worm of theatric despair.
    Wearing the coat of indifference to hide the shame of defeat;
    I, child of the abolitionist idealism -
    A sort of Brand in a birth of half-and-half.
    What other thing could happen when I defended
    The patriot scamps who burned the court house
    That Spoon River might have a new one
    Than plead them guilty?
    When Kinsey Keene drove through
    The card - board mask of my life with a spear of light,...

From Rome's palaces and villas
    Gaily issued forth a throng;
From her humbler habitations
    Moved a human tide along.

Haughty dames and blooming maidens,
    Men who knew not mercy's sway,
Thronged into the Coliseum
    On that Roman holiday.

From the lonely wilds of Asia,
    From her jungles far away,
From the distant torrid regions,
    Rome had gathered beasts of prey.

Lions restless, roaring, rampant,
    Tigers with their stealthy tread,
Leopards bright, and fierce, and fiery,
    Met in conflict wild and dread.

Fierce and fearful was the carnage
    Of the maddened beasts of prey,
As they fought and rent each other
    Urged by men more fierce than they.

Till like muffled thunders breaking
    ...

    Out of the lights and roar of cities,
    Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River,
    Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken,
    The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt,
    But to hide a wounded pride as well.
    To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds -
    I, gifted with tongues and wisdom,
    Sunk here to the dust of the justice court,
    A picker of rags in the rubbage of spites and wrongs, -
    I, whom fortune smiled on!
    I in a village,
    Spouting to gaping yokels pages of verse,
    Out of the lore of golden years,
    Or raising a laugh with a flash of filthy wit
    When they bought the drinks to kindle my dying mind.
    To be judged by you,
    The soul of me hidden from you,
    With its wound gang...

    My mother was for woman's rights
    And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.
    I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.
    When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries
    In order to learn how to reform the world.
    I traveled through many lands. I saw the ruins of Rome
    And the ruins of Athens, And the ruins of Thebes.
    And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.
    There I was caught up by wings of flame,
    And a voice from heaven said to me:
    "Injustice, Untruth destroyed them.
    Go forth Preach Justice! Preach Truth!"
    And I hastened back to Spoon River
    To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.
    They all saw a strange light in my eye.
    And by and by, whe...

    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 ...

    I am Minerva, the village poetess,
    Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street
    For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,
    And all the more when "Butch" Weldy
    Captured me after a brutal hunt.
    He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;
    And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up,
    Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice.
    Will some one go to the village newspaper,
    And gather into a book the verses I wrote? -
    I thirsted so for love
    I hungered so for life!