Louise Smith

    Herbert broke our engagement of eight years
    When Annabelle returned to the village From the
    Seminary, ah me!
    If I had let my love for him alone
    It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow -
    Who knows? - filling my life with healing fragrance.
    But I tortured it, I poisoned it
    I blinded its eyes, and it became hatred -
    Deadly ivy instead of clematis.
    And my soul fell from its support
    Its tendrils tangled in decay.
    Do not let the will play gardener to your soul
    Unless you are sure
    It is wiser than your soul's nature.

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

Mrs. Williams

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

George Trimble

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Lambert Hutchins

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Jacob Goodpasture

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.

Herbert Marshall

    All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me
    Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness
    Of spirit and contempt of your soul's rights
    Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.
    You really grew to hate me for love of me,
    Because I was your soul's happiness,
    Formed and tempered
    To solve your life for you, and would not.
    But you were my misery.
    If you had been
    My happiness would I not have clung to you?
    This is life's sorrow:
    That one can be happy only where two are;
    And that our hearts are drawn to stars
    Which want us not.

Edgar Lee Masters

Pauline Barrett

    Almost the shell of a woman after the surgeon's knife
    And almost a year to creep back into strength,
    Till the dawn of our wedding decennial
    Found me my seeming self again.
    We walked the forest together,
    By a path of soundless moss and turf.
    But I could not look in your eyes,
    And you could not look in my eyes,
    For such sorrow was ours - the beginning of gray in your hair.
    And I but a shell of myself.
    And what did we talk of? - sky and water,
    Anything, 'most, to hide our thoughts.
    And then your gift of wild roses,
    Set on the table to grace our dinner.
    Poor heart, how bravely you struggled
    To imagine and live a remembered rapture!
    Then my spirit drooped as the night came on,
    And you left...

Edgar Lee Masters

Sarah Brown

    Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree.
    The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass,
    The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls,
    But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous
    In the blest Nirvana of eternal light!
    Go to the good heart that is my husband
    Who broods upon what he calls our guilty love: -
    Tell him that my love for you, no less than my love for him
    Wrought out my destiny - that through the flesh
    I won spirit, and through spirit, peace.
    There is no marriage in heaven
    But there is love.

Edgar Lee Masters

Mabel Osborne

    Your red blossoms amid green leaves
    Are drooping, beautiful geranium!
    But you do not ask for water.
    You cannot speak!
    You do not need to speak -
    Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst,
    Yet they do not bring water!
    They pass on, saying:
    "The geranium wants water."
    And I, who had happiness to share
    And longed to share your happiness;
    I who loved you, Spoon River,
    And craved your love,
    Withered before your eyes, Spoon River -
    Thirsting, thirsting,
    Voiceless from chasteness of soul to ask you for love,
    You who knew and saw me perish before you,
    Like this geranium which someone has planted over me,
    And left to die.

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

What You Will

    April rain, delicious weeping,
        Washes white bones from the grave,
    Long enough have they been sleeping.
        They are cleansed, and now they crave
    Once more on the earth to gather
    Pleasure from the springtime weather.

    The pine trees and the long dark grass
        Feed on what is placed below.
    Think you not that there doth pass
        In them something we did know?
    This spell, well, friends, I greet ye once again
    With joy, but with a most unuttered pain.

Edgar Lee Masters