Marcia

    Madeline's hair is straight and yours
    Is just as curly as tendril vines;
    And she is fair, but a deeper color
    Your cheeks of olive incarnadines.

    A serious wisdom burns and glows
    Steadily in your dark-eyed look.
    Already a wit and a little stoic -
    Perhaps you are going to write a book,

    Or paint a picture, or sing or act
    The part of Katherine or Juliet.
    I believe you were born with the gift of knowing
    When to remember and when to forget.

    And when to stifle and kill a grief,
    And clutch your heart when it beats in vain.
    The heart that has most strength for feeling
    Must have the strength to conquer the pain.

    You understand? It seems that you do -
    Though you cannot utter a word to me.
    Marcia, Marcia, look at Madeline
    Building a doll-house under the tree!

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

The Verdict

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Jane Fisher

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Oaks Tutt

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Cities Of The Plain

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Madeline

    I almost heard your little heart
    Begin to beat, and since that hour
    Your life has grown apace and blossomed,
    Fed by the same miraculous power,

    That moved the rivulet of your life,
    And made your heart begin to beat.
    Now all day your steps are a-patter.
    Oh, what swift and musical feet!

    You sleep. I wait to see you wake,
    With wonder-eyes and hands that reach.
    I laugh to hear your thoughts that gather
    Too fast on your budding lips for speech.

    Your sunny hair is cut as if
    'Twere trimmed around a yellow crock.
    How gay the ribbon, and oh, how cunning
    The flaring skirt of the little frock!

    You build and play and search and pry,
    And hunt for dolls and forgotten toys.

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

Caroline Branson

    With our hearts like drifting suns, had we but walked,
    As often before, the April fields till star - light
    Silkened over with viewless gauze the darkness
    Under the cliff, our trysting place in the wood,
    Where the brook turns! Had we but passed from wooing
    Like notes of music that run together, into winning,
    In the inspired improvisation of love!
    But to put back of us as a canticle ended
    The rapt enchantment of the flesh,
    In which our souls swooned, down, down,
    Where time was not, nor space, nor ourselves -
    Annihilated in love!
    To leave these behind for a room with lamps:
    And to stand with our Secret mocking itself,
    And hiding itself amid flowers and mandolins,
    Stared at by all between salad and coffee....

Edgar Lee Masters

Madeline. A Legend Of The Mohawk.

Where the waters of the Mohawk
Through a quiet valley glide,
From the brown church to her dwelling
She that morning passed a bride.
In the mild light of October
Beautiful the forest stood,
As the temple on Mount Zion
When God filled its solitude.

Very quietly the red leaves,
On the languid zephyr's breath,
Fluttered to the mossy hillocks
Where their sisters slept in death:
And the white mist of the Autumn
Hung o'er mountain-top and dale,
Soft and filmy, as the foldings
Of the passing bridal veil.

From the field of Saratoga
At the last night's eventide,
Rode the groom, - a gallant soldier
Flushed with victory and pride,
Seeking, as a priceless guerdon
From the dark-eyed Madeline,
Leave to lead her to the altar
When...

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Portrait Of A Woman

    The pathos in your face is like a peace,
    It is like resignation or a grace
    Which smiles at the surcease
    Of hope. But there is in your face
    The shadow of pain, and there is a trace
    Of memory of pain.

    I look at you again and again,
    And hide my looks lest your quick eye perceives
    My search for your despair.
    I look at your pale hands, I look at your hair;
    And I watch you use your hands, I watch the flare
    Of thought in your eyes like light that interweaves
    A flutter of color running under leaves,
    Such anguished dreams in your eyes!
    And I listen to you speak
    Words like crystals breaking with a tinkle,
    Or a star's twinkle.
    Sometimes as we talk you rise
    And leave the room, and ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Senorita

An agate-black, your roguish eyes
Claim no proud lineage of the skies,
No starry blue; but of good earth
The reckless witchery and mirth.

Looped in your raven hair's repose,
A hot aroma, one red rose
Dies; envious of that loveliness,
By being near which its is less.

Twin sea shells, hung with pearls, your ears,
Whose slender rosiness appears
Part of the pearls; whose pallid fire
Binds the attention these inspire.

One slim hand crumples up the lace
About your bosom's swelling grace;
A ruby at your samite throat
Lends the required color note.

The moon bears through the violet night
A pearly urn of chaliced light;
And from your dark-railed balcony
You stoop and wave your fan at me.

O'er orange orchards and the ros...

Madison Julius Cawein