Hiram Scates

    I tried to win the nomination
    For president of the County-board
    And I made speeches all over the County
    Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival,
    As an enemy of the people,
    In league with the master-foes of man.
    Young idealists, broken warriors,
    Hobbling on one crutch of hope,
    Souls that stake their all on the truth,
    Losers of worlds at heaven's bidding,
    Flocked about me and followed my voice
    As the savior of the County.
    But Solomon won the nomination;
    And then I faced about,
    And rallied my followers to his standard,
    And made him victor, made him King
    Of the Golden Mountain with the door
    Which closed on my heels just as I entered,
    Flattered by Solomon's invitation,
    To be the County - board's secretary.
    And out in the cold stood all my followers:
    Young idealists, broken warriors
    Hobbling on one crutch of hope -
    Souls that staked their all on the truth,
    Losers of worlds at heaven's bidding,
    Watching the Devil kick the Millennium
    Over the Golden Mountain.

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

Lake Boats

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Wendell P. Bloyd

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Johnnie Sayre

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Nicholas Bindle

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.

Granville Calhoun

    I wanted to be County Judge
    One more term, so as to round out a service
    Of thirty years.
    But my friends left me and joined my enemies,
    And they elected a new man.
    Then a spirit of revenge seized me,
    And I infected my four sons with it,
    And I brooded upon retaliation,
    Until the great physician, Nature,
    Smote me through with paralysis
    To give my soul and body a rest.
    Did my sons get power and money?
    Did they serve the people or yoke them,
    To till and harvest fields of self?
    For how could they ever forget
    My face at my bed-room window,
    Sitting helpless amid my golden cages
    Of singing canaries,
    Looking at the old court-house?

Edgar Lee Masters

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

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

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

Knowlt Hoheimer

    I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
    When I felt the bullet enter my heart
    I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
    For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
    Instead of running away and joining the army.
    Rather a thousand times the county jail
    Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,
    And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, "Pro Patria."
    What do they mean, anyway?

Edgar Lee Masters

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, ...

Edgar Lee Masters