Frank Drummer

    Out of a cell into this darkened space -
    The end at twenty-five!
    My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,
    And the village thought me a fool.
    Yet at the start there was a clear vision,
    A high and urgent purpose in my soul
    Which drove me on trying to memorize
    The Encyclopedia Britannica!

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

Minerva Jones

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Elijah Browning

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Petit, the Poet

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

In The Cage

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.

Alfred Moir

    Why was I not devoured by self-contempt,
    And rotted down by indifference
    And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones?
    Why, with all of my errant steps
    Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke?
    And why, though I stood at Burchard's bar,
    As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys
    To buy the drinks, did the curse of drink
    Fall on me like rain that runs off,
    Leaving the soul of me dry and clean?
    And why did I never kill a man Like Jack McGuire?
    But instead I mounted a little in life,
    And I owe it all to a book I read.
    But why did I go to Mason City,
    Where I chanced to see the book in a window,
    With its garish cover luring my eye?
    And why did my soul respond to the book,
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Edgar Lee Masters

Harold Arnett

    I leaned against the mantel, sick, sick,
    Thinking of my failure, looking into the abysm,
    Weak from the noon-day heat.
    A church bell sounded mournfully far away,
    I heard the cry of a baby,
    And the coughing of John Yarnell,
    Bed-ridden, feverish, feverish, dying,
    Then the violent voice of my wife:
    "Watch out, the potatoes are burning!"
    I smelled them . . . then there was irresistible disgust.
    I pulled the trigger . . . blackness . . . light . . .
    Unspeakable regret . . . fumbling for the world again.
    Too late! Thus I came here,
    With lungs for breathing . . . one cannot breathe here with lungs,
    Though one must breathe
    Of what use is it To rid one's self of the world,
    When no soul may ever escape t...

Edgar Lee Masters

William H. Herndon

    There by the window in the old house
    Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley,
    My days of labor closed, sitting out life's decline,
    Day by day did I look in my memory,
    As one who gazes in an enchantress' crystal globe,
    And I saw the figures of the past
    As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream,
    Move through the incredible sphere of time.
    And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant
    And throw himself over a deathless destiny,
    Master of great armies, head of the republic,
    Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song
    The epic hopes of a people;
    At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires,
    Where imperishable shields and swords were beaten out
    From spirits tempered in heaven....

Edgar Lee Masters

Neanderthal

"Then what is life?" I cried. And with that cry
I woke from deeper slumber - was it sleep? -
And saw a hooded figure standing by
The bed whereon I lay.

    "Why do you keep,
O spirit beautiful and swift, this guard
About my slumber? Shelley, from the deep
Why do you come with veiled face, mighty bard,
As that unearthly shape was veiled to you
At Casa Magni?"

        Then the room was starred
With light as I was speaking, and I knew
The god, my brother, from whose face the veil
Melted as mist.

        "What mission fair and true,
While I am sleeping, brings you? For I pale
Amid this solemn stillness, for your face
Unutterably majestic."

    As when the dale
At midnight echoes for a little space,
The night-bird's cry, ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Webster Ford

    Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,
    The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M'Grew
    Cried, "There's a ghost," and I, "It's Delphic Apollo,".
    And the son of the banker derided us, saying, "It's light
    By the flags at the water's edge, you half-witted fools."
    And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long after
    Poor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his death
    Down, down, through bellowing darkness, I carried
    The vision which perished with him like a rocket which falls
    And quenches its light in earth, and hid it for fear
    Of the son of the banker, calling on Plutus to save me?
    Avenged were you for the shame of a fearful heart
    Who left me alone till I saw you again in an hour
    When I seemed to be turned to a tree...

Edgar Lee Masters

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