Jim Brown

    While I was handling Dom Pedro
    I got at the thing that divides the race between men who are
    For singing "Turkey in the straw" or
    "There is a fountain filled with blood" -
    (Like Rile Potter used to sing it over at Concord).
    For cards, or for Rev. Peet's lecture on the holy land;
    For skipping the light fantastic, or passing the plate;
    For Pinafore, or a Sunday school cantata;
    For men, or for money;
    For the people or against them.
    This was it: Rev. Peet and the Social Purity Club,
    Headed by Ben Pantier's wife,
    Went to the Village trustees,
    And asked them to make me take Dom Pedro
    From the barn of Wash McNeely, there at the edge of town,
    To a barn outside of the corporation,
    On the ground that it corrupted public morals.
    Well, Ben Pantier and Fiddler Jones saved the day -
    They thought it a slam on colts.

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

Zenas Witt

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Henry Phipps

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Walter Simmons

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Blind Jack

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.

A. D. Blood

    If you in the village think that my work was a good one,
    Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards,
    And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett,
    In many a crusade to purge the people of sin;
    Why do you let the milliner's daughter Dora,
    And the worthless son of Benjamin Pantier
    Nightly make my grave their unholy pillow?

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

The Hill

    Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley,
    The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?
    All, all are sleeping on the hill.

    One passed in a fever,
    One was burned in a mine,
    One was killed in a brawl,
    One died in a jail,
    One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife -
    All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

    Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith,
    The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one? -
    All, all are sleeping on the hill.

    One died in shameful child-birth,
    One of a thwarted love,
    One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,
    One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire;
    One after li...

Edgar Lee Masters

Fiddler Jones

    The earth keeps some vibration going
    There in your heart, and that is you.
    And if the people find you can fiddle,
    Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
    What do you see, a harvest of clover?
    Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
    The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands
    For beeves hereafter ready for market;
    Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
    Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
    To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
    Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;
    They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
    Stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor."
    How could I till my forty acres
    Not to speak of getting more,
    With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
    Stirred in my brain by crows and robi...

Edgar Lee Masters

O'Dowd Of The Jefferson Club.

A maddened horse comes down the street,
    With waving mane and flying feet.
The crowd scatters in every direction;
    It looks like a fight at a city election.
A big policeman waves his hands,
    And the air is full of vague commands,
While across the street a retail grocer
    Shrieks to his child as the horse draws closer
When suddenly out of the mad hubbub,
    Steps Jimmie O'Dowd of the Jefferson Club.

Every man there holds his breath--
    To stop the horse means sudden death.
But quick as a flash,
    O'Dowd makes a dash.
With all his might and the horse's mane,
    He brings the old plug to a halt again.
Then every man there doffs his hat
    And cries "Well, what do you think of that?"
Never since the days of Nero
    Has there...

Edwin C. Ranck

Peleg Poague

    Horses and men are just alike.
    There was my stallion, Billy Lee,
    Black as a cat and trim as a deer,
    With an eye of fire, keen to start,
    And he could hit the fastest speed
    Of any racer around Spoon River.
    But just as you'd think he couldn't lose,
    With his lead of fifty yards or more,
    He'd rear himself and throw the rider,
    And fall back over, tangled up,
    Completely gone to pieces.
    You see he was a perfect fraud:
    He couldn't win, he couldn't work,
    He was too light to haul or plow with,
    And no one wanted colts from him.
    And when I tried to drive him - well,
    He ran away and killed me.

Edgar Lee Masters