Knowlt Hoheimer

    I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
    When I felt the bullet enter my heart
    I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
    For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
    Instead of running away and joining the army.
    Rather a thousand times the county jail
    Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,
    And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, "Pro Patria."
    What do they mean, anyway?

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

Rev. Lemuel Wiley

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Birth Of Elenor Murray

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Unknown

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Penniwit, the Artist

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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William H. Herndon

    There by the window in the old house
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    My days of labor closed, sitting out life's decline,
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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.
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Edgar Lee Masters

Aaron Hatfield

    Better than granite, Spoon River,
    Is the memory-picture you keep of me
    Standing before the pioneer men and women
    There at Concord Church on Communion day.
    Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth
    Of Galilee who went to the city
    And was killed by bankers and lawyers;
    My voice mingling with the June wind
    That blew over wheat fields from Atterbury;
    While the white stones in the burying ground
    Around the Church shimmered in the summer sun.
    And there, though my own memories
    Were too great to bear, were you, O pioneers,
    With bowed heads breathing forth your sorrow
    For the sons killed in battle and the daughters
    And little children who vanished in life's morning,
    Or at the intolerable hour of no...

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

Doc Hill

    I went up and down the streets
    Here and there by day and night,
    Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick.
    Do you know why?
    My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs.
    And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them.
    Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of my funeral,
    And hear them murmur their love and sorrow.
    But oh, dear God, my soul trembled, scarcely able
    To hold to the railing of the new life
    When I saw Em Stanton behind the oak tree
    At the grave,
    Hiding herself, and her grief!

Edgar Lee Masters

W. Lloyd Garrison Standard

    Vegetarian, non - resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian;
    Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll.
    Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan.
    Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain,
    Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing for laughter;
    With heart cored out by the worm of theatric despair.
    Wearing the coat of indifference to hide the shame of defeat;
    I, child of the abolitionist idealism -
    A sort of Brand in a birth of half-and-half.
    What other thing could happen when I defended
    The patriot scamps who burned the court house
    That Spoon River might have a new one
    Than plead them guilty?
    When Kinsey Keene drove through
    The card - board mask of my life with a spear of light,...

Edgar Lee Masters