Le Roy Goldman

    What will you do when you come to die,
    If all your life long you have rejected Jesus,
    And know as you lie there,
    He is not your friend?"
    Over and over I said, I, the revivalist.
    Ah, yes! but there are friends and friends.
    And blessed are you, say I, who know all now,
    You who have lost ere you pass,
    A father or mother, or old grandfather or mother
    Some beautiful soul that lived life strongly
    And knew you all through, and loved you ever,
    Who would not fail to speak for you,
    And give God an intimate view of your soul
    As only one of your flesh could do it.
    That is the hand your hand will reach for,
    To lead you along the corridor
    To the court where you are a stranger!

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

Mickey M'Grew

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Henry Tripp

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Emily Sparks

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Mrs. Sibley

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.

The Helping Hand

    Mother, my head is bloody, my breast is red with scars.
    Well, foolish son, I told you so, why went you to the wars?

    Mother, my soul is crucified, my thirst is past belief.
    How are you crucified, my son, betwixt a thief and thief?

    Mother, I feel the terror and the loveliness of life.
    Tell me of the children, son, and tell me of the wife.

    Mother, your face is but a face among a million more.
    You're standing on the deck, my son, and looking at the shore.

    I lean against the wall, mother, and struggle hard for breath.
    You must have heard the step, my son, of the patrolman Death.

    Mother, my soul is weary, where is the way to God?
    Well, kiss the crucifix, my son, and pass beneath the rod.

Edgar Lee Masters

Recessional In Time Of War

Medical Unit -

Even as I see, and share with you in seeing,
The altar flame of your love's sacrifice;
And even as I bear before the hour the vision,
Your little hands in hospital and prison
Laid upon broken bodies, dying eyes,
So do I suffer for splendor of your being
Which leads you from me, and in separation
Lays on my breast the pain of memory.
Over your hands I bend
In silent adoration,
Dumb for a fear of sorrow without end,
Asking for consolation
Out of the sacrament of our separation,
And for some faithful word acceptable and true,
That I may know and keep the mystery:
That in this separation I go forth with you
And you to the world's end remain with me.

        *        *        *        *        *

How may I justify the ...

Edgar Lee Masters

De Profundis

When I am dead unto myself, and let,
O Father, thee live on in me,
Contented to do nought but pay my debt,
And leave the house to thee,

Then shall I be thy ransomed--from the cark
Of living, from the strain for breath,
From tossing in my coffin strait and dark,
At hourly strife with death!

Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake!
A buried temple of the Lord!
Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break!
Stream out, O living Sword!

When I am with thee as thou art with me,
Life will be self-forgetting power;
Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free,
Will flame in darkest hour.

Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm,
With windows open to thy wind,
Shall I not know thee in the radiant psalm
Soaring from heart and mind...

George MacDonald

Willard Fluke

    My wife lost her health,
    And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds.
    Then that woman, whom the men
    Styled Cleopatra, came along.
    And we - we married ones
    All broke our vows, myself among the rest.
    Years passed and one by one
    Death claimed them all in some hideous form
    And I was borne along by dreams
    Of God's particular grace for me,
    And I began to write, write, write, reams on reams
    Of the second coming of Christ.
    Then Christ came to me and said,
    "Go into the church and stand before the congregation
    And confess your sin."
    But just as I stood up and began to speak
    I saw my little girl, who was sitting in the front seat -
    My little girl who was born blind!
    After that, ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Mary McNeely

    Passer-By,
    To love is to find your own soul
    Through the soul of the beloved one.
    When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul
    Then you have lost your soul.
    It is written: "l have a friend,
    But my sorrow has no friend."
    Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my father,
    Trying to get myself back,
    And to turn my sorrow into a supremer self.
    But there was my father with his sorrows,
    Sitting under the cedar tree,
    A picture that sank into my heart at last
    Bringing infinite repose.
    Oh, ye souls who have made life
    Fragrant and white as tube roses
    From earth's dark soil,
    Eternal peace!

Edgar Lee Masters

Father Malloy

    You are over there, Father Malloy,
    Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,
    Not here with us on the hill -
    Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision
    And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins.
    You were so human, Father Malloy,
    Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us,
    Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River
    From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.
    You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand
    From the wastes about the pyramids
    And makes them real and Egypt real.
    You were a part of and related to a great past,
    And yet you were so close to many of us.
    You believed in the joy of life.
    You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.
    You faced life as it is,

Edgar Lee Masters