J. Milton Miles

    Whenever the Presbyterian bell
    Was rung by itself, I knew it as the Presbyterian bell.
    But when its sound was mingled
    With the sound of the Methodist, the Christian,
    The Baptist and the Congregational,
    I could no longer distinguish it,
    Nor any one from the others, or either of them.
    And as many voices called to me in life
    Marvel not that I could not tell
    The true from the false,
    Nor even, at last, the voice that
    I should have known.

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

Blind Jack

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Harry Wilmans

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Butch" Weldy

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Letter

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Tennessee Claflin Shope

    I was the laughing-stock of the village,
    Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves -
    Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek
    The same as English.
    For instead of talking free trade,
    Or preaching some form of baptism;
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    Of walking cracks, picking up pins the right way,
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    Or curing rheumatism with blue glass,
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    Before Mary Baker G. Eddy even got started
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    Peace to all worlds!

Edgar Lee Masters

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,
    As I read it over and...

Edgar Lee Masters

Lydia Humphrey

    Back and forth, back and forth, to and from the church,
    With my Bible under my arm
    'Till I was gray and old;
    Unwedded, alone in the world,
    Finding brothers and sisters in the congregation,
    And children in the church.
    I know they laughed and thought me queer.
    I knew of the eagle souls that flew high in the sunlight,
    Above the spire of the church, and laughed at the church,
    Disdaining me, not seeing me.
    But if the high air was sweet to them, sweet was the church to me.
    It was the vision, vision, vision of the poets
    Democratized!

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

Jacob Goodpasture

    When Fort Sumter fell and the war came
    I cried out in bitterness of soul:
    "O glorious republic now no more!"
    When they buried my soldier son
    To the call of trumpets and the sound of drums
    My heart broke beneath the weight
    Of eighty years, and I cried:
    "Oh, son who died in a cause unjust!
    In the strife of Freedom slain!"
    And I crept here under the grass.
    And now from the battlements of time, behold:
    Thrice thirty million souls being bound together
    In the love of larger truth,
    Rapt in the expectation of the birth
    Of a new Beauty,
    Sprung from Brotherhood and Wisdom.
    I with eyes of spirit see the Transfiguration
    Before you see it.
    But ye infinite brood of golden eagles nesting ev...

Edgar Lee Masters

Chase Henry

    In life I was the town drunkard;
    When I died the priest denied me burial
    In holy ground.
    The which redounded to my good fortune.
    For the Protestants bought this lot,
    And buried my body here,
    Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas,
    And of his wife Priscilla.
    Take note, ye prudent and pious souls,
    Of the cross - currents in life
    Which bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame

Edgar Lee Masters