Jonathan Swift Somers (Author of the Spooniad)

    After you have enriched your soul
    To the highest point,
    With books, thought, suffering,
    The understanding of many personalities,
    The power to interpret glances, silences,
    The pauses in momentous transformations,
    The genius of divination and prophecy;
    So that you feel able at times to hold the world
    In the hollow of your hand;
    Then, if, by the crowding of so many powers
    Into the compass of your soul,
    Your soul takes fire,
    And in the conflagration of your soul
    The evil of the world is lighted up and made clear -
    Be thankful if in that hour of supreme vision
    Life does not fiddle.

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

Dorcas Gustine

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Alfonso Churchill

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Zenas Witt

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Thomas Ross, Jr.

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.

Ezra Bartlett

    A chaplain in the army,
    A chaplain in the prisons,
    An exhorter in Spoon River,
    Drunk with divinity, Spoon River -
    Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame,
    And myself to scorn and wretchedness.
    But why will you never see that love of women,
    And even love of wine,
    Are the stimulants by which the soul, hungering for divinity,
    Reaches the ecstatic vision
    And sees the celestial outposts?
    Only after many trials for strength,
    Only when all stimulants fail,
    Does the aspiring soul
    By its own sheer power
    Find the divine
    By resting upon itself.

Edgar Lee Masters

Henry C. Calhoun

    I reached the highest place in Spoon River,
    But through what bitterness of spirit!
    The face of my father, sitting speechless,
    Child-like, watching his canaries,
    And looking at the court-house window
    Of the county judge's room,
    And his admonitions to me to seek
    My own in life, and punish Spoon River
    To avenge the wrong the people did him,
    Filled me with furious energy
    To seek for wealth and seek for power.
    But what did he do but send me along
    The path that leads to the grove of the Furies?
    I followed the path and I tell you this:
    On the way to the grove you'll pass the Fates,
    Shadow-eyed, bent over their weaving.
    Stop for a moment, and if you see
    The thread of revenge leap out of the s...

Edgar Lee Masters

William Marion Reedy

    He sits before you silent as Buddha,
    And then you say
    This man is Rabelais.
    And while you wonder what his stock is,
    English or Irish, you behold his eyes
    As big and brown as those desirable crockies
    With which as boys we used to play.
    And then you see the spherical light that lies
    Just under the iris coloring,
    Before which everything,
    Becomes as plain as day.

    If you have noticed the rolling jowls
    And the face that speaks its chief
    Delight in beer and roast beef
    Before you have seen his eyes, you see
    A man of fleshly jollity,
    Like the friars of old in gowns and cowls
    To make a show of scowls.
    And when he speaks from an orotund depth that growls
    In a humorous way...

Edgar Lee Masters

Robert Davidson

    I grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men.
    If I saw a soul that was strong
    I wounded its pride and devoured its strength.
    The shelters of friendship knew my cunning
    For where I could steal a friend I did so.
    And wherever I could enlarge my power
    By undermining ambition, I did so,
    Thus to make smooth my own.
    And to triumph over other souls,
    Just to assert and prove my superior strength,
    Was with me a delight,
    The keen exhilaration of soul gymnastics.
    Devouring souls, I should have lived forever.
    But their undigested remains bred in me a deadly nephritis,
    With fear, restlessness, sinking spirits,
    Hatred, suspicion, vision disturbed.
    I collapsed at last with a shriek.
    Remember t...

Edgar Lee Masters

Bettesworth's Exultation

Upon Hearing That His Name Would Be Transmitted To Posterity In Dr. Swift's Works.
By William Dunkin


Well! now, since the heat of my passion's abated,
That the Dean hath lampoon'd me, my mind is elated: -
Lampoon'd did I call it? - No - what was it then?
What was it? - 'Twas fame to be lash'd by his pen:
For had he not pointed me out, I had slept till
E'en doomsday, a poor insignificant reptile;
Half lawyer, half actor, pert, dull, and inglorious,
Obscure, and unheard of - but now I'm notorious:
Fame has but two gates, a white and a black one;
The worst they can say is, I got in at the back one:
If the end be obtain'd 'tis equal what portal
I enter, since I'm to be render'd immortal:
So clysters applied to the anus, 'tis said,
By skilful physicians, giv...

Jonathan Swift

Oaks Tutt

    My mother was for woman's rights
    And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.
    I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.
    When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries
    In order to learn how to reform the world.
    I traveled through many lands. I saw the ruins of Rome
    And the ruins of Athens, And the ruins of Thebes.
    And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.
    There I was caught up by wings of flame,
    And a voice from heaven said to me:
    "Injustice, Untruth destroyed them.
    Go forth Preach Justice! Preach Truth!"
    And I hastened back to Spoon River
    To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.
    They all saw a strange light in my eye.
    And by and by, whe...

Edgar Lee Masters