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
    In spite of the whispers that I was a lobbyist.
    Moving quietly through the world, rich and courted.
    Dying at last, of course, but lying here
    Under a stone with an open book carved upon it
    And the words "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."
    And now, you world-savers, who reaped nothing in life
    And in death have neither stones nor epitaphs,
    How do you like your silence from mouths stopped
    With the dust of my triumphant career?