Jonas Keene

    Why did Albert Schirding kill himself
    Trying to be County Superintendent of Schools,
    Blest as he was with the means of life
    And wonderful children, bringing him honor
    Ere he was sixty?
    If even one of my boys could have run a news-stand,
    Or one of my girls could have married a decent man,
    I should not have walked in the rain
    And jumped into bed with clothes all wet,
    Refusing medical aid.

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

Sarah Brown

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

William H. Herndon

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Tom Beatty

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Terminus

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Albert Schirding

    Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one
    Because his children were all failures.
    But I know of a fate more trying than that:
    It is to be a failure while your children are successes.
    For I raised a brood of eagles
    Who flew away at last, leaving me
    A crow on the abandoned bough.
    Then, with the ambition to prefix
    Honorable to my name,
    And thus to win my children's admiration,
    I ran for County Superintendent of Schools,
    Spending my accumulations to win - and lost.
    That fall my daughter received first prize in
    Paris For her picture, entitled, "The Old Mill" -
    (It was of the water mill before Henry Wilkin put in steam.)
    The feeling that I was not worthy of her finished me.

Edgar Lee Masters

Doctor Meyers

    No other man, unless it was Doc Hill,
    Did more for people in this town than I.
    And all the weak, the halt, the improvident
    And those who could not pay flocked to me.
    I was good-hearted, easy Doctor Meyers.
    I was healthy, happy, in comfortable fortune,
    Blest with a congenial mate, my children raised,
    All wedded, doing well in the world.
    And then one night, Minerva, the poetess,
    Came to me in her trouble, crying.
    I tried to help her out - she died -
    They indicted me, the newspapers disgraced me,
    My wife perished of a broken heart.
    And pneumonia finished me.

Edgar Lee Masters

Hon. Henry Bennett

    It never came into my mind
    Until I was ready to die
    That Jenny had loved me to death, with malice of heart.
    For I was seventy, she was thirty - five,
    And I wore myself to a shadow trying to husband
    Jenny, rosy Jenny full of the ardor of life.
    For all my wisdom and grace of mind
    Gave her no delight at all, in very truth,
    But ever and anon she spoke of the giant strength
    Of Willard Shafer, and of his wonderful feat
    Of lifting a traction engine out of the ditch
    One time at Georgie Kirby's.
    So Jenny inherited my fortune and married Willard -
    That mount of brawn! That clownish soul!

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

Indignation" Jones

    You would not believe, would you
    That I came from good Welsh stock?
    That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?
    And of more direct lineage than the
    New Englanders And Virginians of Spoon River?
    You would not believe that I had been to school
    And read some books.
    You saw me only as a run-down man
    With matted hair and beard
    And ragged clothes.
    Sometimes a man's life turns into a cancer
    From being bruised and continually bruised,
    And swells into a purplish mass
    Like growths on stalks of corn.
    Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life
    Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow,
    With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter,
    Whom you tormented and drove to deat...

Edgar Lee Masters

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