John M. Church

    I was attorney for the "Q"
    And the Indemnity Company which insured
    The owners of the mine.
    I pulled the wires with judge and jury,
    And the upper courts, to beat the claims
    Of the crippled, the widow and orphan,
    And made a fortune thereat.
    The bar association sang my praises
    In a high-flown resolution.
    And the floral tributes were many -
    But the rats devoured my heart
    And a snake made a nest in my skull

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

Cooney Potter

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Oscar Hummel

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Circuit Judge

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Hare Drummer

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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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.
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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

Lambert Hutchins

    I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk:
    One, the house I built on the hill,
    With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate.
    The other, the lake-front in Chicago,
    Where the railroad keeps a switching yard,
    With whistling engines and crunching wheels
    And smoke and soot thrown over the city,
    And the crash of cars along the boulevard, -
    A blot like a hog-pen on the harbor
    Of a great metropolis, foul as a sty.
    I helped to give this heritage
    To generations yet unborn, with my vote
    In the House of Representatives,
    And the lure of the thing was to be at rest
    From the never - ending fright of need,
    And to give my daughters gentle breeding,
    And a sense of security in life.
    But, you ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Silas Dement

    It was moon-light, and the earth sparkled
    With new-fallen frost.
    It was midnight and not a soul abroad.
    Out of the chimney of the court-house
    A gray-hound of smoke leapt and chased
    The northwest wind.
    I carried a ladder to the landing of the stairs
    And leaned it against the frame of the trap-door
    In the ceiling of the portico,
    And I crawled under the roof and amid the rafters
    And flung among the seasoned timbers
    A lighted handful of oil-soaked waste.
    Then I came down and slunk away.
    In a little while the fire-bell rang -
    Clang! Clang! Clang!
    And the Spoon River ladder company
    Came with a dozen buckets and began to pour water
    On the glorious bon-fire, growing hotter
    Higher and...

Edgar Lee Masters

E. C. Culbertson

    Is it true, Spoon River,
    That in the hall - way of the New Court House
    There is a tablet of bronze
    Containing the embossed faces
    Of Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhodes?
    And is it true that my successful labors
    In the County Board, without which
    Not one stone would have been placed on another,
    And the contributions out of my own pocket
    To build the temple, are but memories among the people,
    Gradually fading away, and soon to descend
    With them to this oblivion where I lie?
    In truth, I can so believe.
    For it is a law of the Kingdom of Heaven
    That whoso enters the vineyard at the eleventh hour
    Shall receive a full day's pay.
    And it is a law of the Kingdom of this World
    That those who first op...

Edgar Lee Masters

Judge Somers

    How does it happen, tell me,
    That I who was most erudite of lawyers,
    Who knew Blackstone and Coke
    Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech
    The court-house ever heard, and wrote
    A brief that won the praise of Justice Breese
    How does it happen, tell me,
    That I lie here unmarked, forgotten,
    While Chase Henry, the town drunkard,
    Has a marble block, topped by an urn
    Wherein Nature, in a mood ironical,
    Has sown a flowering weed?

Edgar Lee Masters