George Trimble

    Do you remember when I stood on the steps
    Of the Court House and talked free-silver,
    And the single-tax of Henry George?
    Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader
    Lost the first battle, I began to talk prohibition,
    And became active in the church?
    That was due to my wife,
    Who pictured to me my destruction
    If I did not prove my morality to the people.
    Well, she ruined me:
    For the radicals grew suspicious of me,
    And the conservatives were never sure of me -
    And here I lie, unwept of all.

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

Jennie M'Grew

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Altar

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Mary McNeely

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Mrs. George Reece

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.

Hildrup Tubbs

    I Made two fights for the people.
    First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon
    Of independence, for reform, and was defeated.
    Next I used my rebel strength
    To capture the standard of my old party -
    And I captured it, but I was defeated.
    Discredited and discarded, misanthropical,
    I turned to the solace of gold
    And I used my remnant of power
    To fasten myself like a saprophyte
    Upon the putrescent carcass
    Of Thomas Rhodes, bankrupt bank,
    As assignee of the fund.
    Everyone now turned from me.
    My hair grew white,
    My purple lusts grew gray,
    Tobacco and whisky lost their savor
    And for years Death ignored me
    As he does a hog.

Edgar Lee Masters

Jacob Godbey

    How did you feel, you libertarians,
    Who spent your talents rallying noble reasons
    Around the saloon, as if Liberty
    Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar
    Or at a table, guzzling?
    How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you,
    Who almost stoned me for a tyrant
    Garbed as a moralist,
    And as a wry-faced ascetic frowning upon Yorkshire pudding,
    Roast beef and ale and good will and rosy cheer -
    Things you never saw in a grog-shop in your life?
    How did you feel after I was dead and gone,
    And your goddess, Liberty, unmasked as a strumpet,
    Selling out the streets of Spoon River
    To the insolent giants
    Who manned the saloons from afar?
    Did it occur to you that personal liberty
    Is li...

Edgar Lee Masters

The Cocked Hat

Would that someone would knock Mr. Bryan into a cocked hat. - WOODROW WILSON.


    It ain't really a hat at all, Ed:
    You know that, don't you?
    When you bowl over six out of the nine pins,
    And the three that are standing
    Are the triangular three in front,
    You've knocked the nine into a cocked hat.
    If it was really a hat, he would be knocked in, too.
    Which he hardly is. For a man with money,
    And a man who can draw a crowd to listen
    To what he says, ain't all-in yet....
    Oh yes, defeated
    And killed off a dozen times, but still
    He's one of the three nine pins that's standing ...
    Eh? Why, the other is Teddy, the other
    Wilson, we'll say. We'll see, perhaps.
    But six are down to make the cocked hat ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Adam Weirauch

    I was crushed between Altgeld and Armour.
    I lost many friends, much time and money
    Fighting for Altgeld whom Editor Whedon
    Denounced as the candidate of gamblers and anarchists.
    Then Armour started to ship dressed meat to Spoon River,
    Forcing me to shut down my slaughter-house
    And my butcher shop went all to pieces.
    The new forces of Altgeld and Armour caught me
    At the same time. I thought it due me, to recoup the money I lost
    And to make good the friends that left me,
    For the Governor to appoint me Canal Commissioner.
    Instead he appointed Whedon of the Spoon River Argus,
    So I ran for the legislature and was elected.
    I said to hell with principle and sold my vote
    On Charles T. Yerkes' street-car franchise.

Edgar Lee Masters

W. Lloyd Garrison Standard

    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,...

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