Henry Phipps

    I was the Sunday-school superintendent,
    The dummy president of the wagon works
    And the canning factory,
    Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique;
    My son the cashier of the bank,
    Wedded to Rhodes, daughter,
    My week days spent in making money,
    My Sundays at church and in prayer.
    In everything a cog in the wheel of things - as - they-are:
    Of money, master and man, made white
    With the paint of the Christian creed.
    And then:
    The bank collapsed.
    I stood and hooked at the wrecked machine -
    The wheels with blow-holes stopped with putty and painted;
    The rotten bolts, the broken rods;
    And only the hopper for souls fit to be used again
    In a new devourer of life,
    When newspapers, judges and money-magicians
    Build over again.
    I was stripped to the bone, but I lay in the Rock of Ages,
    Seeing now through the game, no longer a dupe,
    And knowing "'the upright shall dwell in the land
    But the years of the wicked shall be shortened."
    Then suddenly, Dr. Meyers discovered
    A cancer in my liver.
    I was not, after all, the particular care of God
    Why, even thus standing on a peak
    Above the mists through which I had climbed,
    And ready for larger life in the world,
    Eternal forces
    Moved me on with a push.

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

Fletcher McGee

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Friar Yves

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Simon Surnamed Peter

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.

Ralph Rhodes

    All they said was true:
    I wrecked my father's bank with my loans
    To dabble in wheat; but this was true -
    I was buying wheat for him as well,
    Who couldn't margin the deal in his name
    Because of his church relationship.
    And while George Reece was serving his term
    I chased the will-o-the-wisp of women
    And the mockery of wine in New York.
    It's deathly to sicken of wine and women
    When nothing else is left in life.
    But suppose your head is gray, and bowed
    On a table covered with acrid stubs
    Of cigarettes and empty glasses,
    And a knock is heard, and you know it's the knock
    So long drowned out by popping corks
    And the pea-cock screams of demireps -
    And you look up, and there's your Theft,

Edgar Lee Masters

Willard Fluke

    My wife lost her health,
    And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds.
    Then that woman, whom the men
    Styled Cleopatra, came along.
    And we - we married ones
    All broke our vows, myself among the rest.
    Years passed and one by one
    Death claimed them all in some hideous form
    And I was borne along by dreams
    Of God's particular grace for me,
    And I began to write, write, write, reams on reams
    Of the second coming of Christ.
    Then Christ came to me and said,
    "Go into the church and stand before the congregation
    And confess your sin."
    But just as I stood up and began to speak
    I saw my little girl, who was sitting in the front seat -
    My little girl who was born blind!
    After that, ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Eugene Carman

    Rhodes, slave! Selling shoes and gingham,
    Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long
    For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days
    For more than twenty years.
    Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir", and "Thank you"
    A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.
    Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial."
    And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listen
    To the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a year
    For more than an hour at a time,
    Because Thomas Rhodes ran the church
    As well as the store and the bank.
    So while I was tying my neck-tie that morning
    I suddenly saw myself in the glass:
    My hair all gray, my face like a sodden pie.
    So I cursed and curse...

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

Rev. Percy Ferguson

    The Rev. Percy Ferguson, patrician
    Vicar of Christ, companion of the strong,
    And member of the inner shrine, where men
    Observe the rituals of the golden calf;
    A dilettante, and writer for the press
    Upon such themes as optimism, order,
    Obedience, beauty, law, while Elenor Murray's
    Life was being weighed by Merival
    Preached in disparagement of Merival
    Upon a fatal Sunday, as it chanced,
    Too near to doom's day for the clergyman.
    For, as the word had gone about that waste
    In lives preoccupied this Merival,
    And many talked of waste, and spoke a life
    Where waste had been in whole or part - the pulpit
    Should take a hand, thought Ferguson. And so
    The Reverend Percy Ferguson preached thus
    To a...

Edgar Lee Masters

Butch" Weldy

    After I got religion and steadied down
    They gave me a job in the canning works,
    And every morning I had to fill
    The tank in the yard with gasoline,
    That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
    To heat the soldering irons.
    And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
    Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
    One morning, as I stood there pouring,
    The air grew still and seemed to heave,
    And I shot up as the tank exploded,
    And down I came with both legs broken,
    And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs.
    For someone left a blow - fire going,
    And something sucked the flame in the tank.
    The Circuit Judge said whoever did it
    Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so
    Old Rhodes' son didn't have to pay me.
 ...

Edgar Lee Masters