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

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

Cassius Hueffer

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Mrs. Benjamin Pantier

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

William H. Herndon

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Calvin Campbell

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 Letter

What does one gain by living? What by dying
Is lost worth having? What the daily things
Lived through together make them worth the while
For their sakes or for life's? Where's the denying
Of souls through separation? There's your smile!
And your hands' touch! And the long day that brings
Half uttered nothings of delight! But then
Now that I see you not, and shall again
Touch you no more - memory can possess
Your soul's essential self, and none the less
You live with me. I therefore write to you
This letter just as if you were away
Upon a journey, or a holiday;
And so I'll put down everything that's new
In this secluded village, since you left. ...
Now let me think! Well, then, as I remember,
After ten days the lilacs burst in bloom.
We had spring all at o...

Edgar Lee Masters

James Garber

    Do you remember, passer-by, the path
    I wore across the lot where now stands the opera house
    Hasting with swift feet to work through many years?
    Take its meaning to heart:
    You too may walk, after the hills at Miller's Ford
    Seem no longer far away;
    Long after you see them near at hand,
    Beyond four miles of meadow;
    And after woman's love is silent
    Saying no more: "l will save you."
    And after the faces of friends and kindred
    Become as faded photographs, pitifully silent,
    Sad for the look which means:
    "We cannot help you."
    And after you no longer reproach mankind
    With being in league against your soul's uplifted hands -
    Themselves compelled at midnight and at noon
    To watch with steadfast e...

Edgar Lee Masters

Terminus

    Terminus shows the ways and says,
    "All things must have an end."
    Oh, bitter thought we hid away
    When first you were my friend.

    We hid it in the darkest place
    Our hearts had place to hide,
    And took the sweet as from a spring
    Whose waters would abide.

    For neither life nor the wide world
    Has greater store than this: -
    The thought that runs through hands and eyes
    And fills the silences.

    There is a void the agéd world
    Throws over the spent heart;
    When Life has given all she has,
    And Terminus says depart.

    When we must sit with folded hands,
    And see with inward eye
    A void rise like an arctic breath
    To hollow the morrow's sky.

    To-morrow...

Edgar Lee Masters

Soul's Desire

    Her soul is like a wolf that stands
    Where sunlight falls between the trees
    Of a sparse forest's leafless edge,
    When Spring's first magic moveth these.

    Her soul is like a little brook,
    Thin edged with ice against the leaves,
    Where the wolf drinks and is alone,
    And where the woodbine interweaves.

    A bank late covered by the snow,
    But lighted by the frozen North;
    Her soul is like a little plot
    That one white blossom bringeth forth.

    Her soul is slim, like silver slips,
    And straight, like flags beside a stream.
    Her soul is like a shape that moves
    And changes in a wonder dream.

    Who would pursue her clasps a cloud,
    And taketh sorrow for his zeal.
    Memory shall ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Washington McNeely

    Rich, honored by my fellow citizens,
    The father of many children, born of a noble mother,
    All raised there
    In the great mansion - house, at the edge of town.
    Note the cedar tree on the lawn!
    I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford,
    The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors -
    Resting under my cedar tree at evening.
    The years went on. I sent the girls to Europe;
    I dowered them when married.
    I gave the boys money to start in business.
    They were strong children, promising as apples
    Before the bitten places show.
    But John fled the country in disgrace.
    Jenny died in child-birth -
    I sat under my cedar tree.
    Harry killed himself after a debauch, Susan was divorce...

Edgar Lee Masters

Rain In My Heart

    There is a quiet in my heart
    Like one who rests from days of pain.
    Outside, the sparrows on the roof
    Are chirping in the dripping rain.

    Rain in my heart; rain on the roof;
    And memory sleeps beneath the gray
    And windless sky and brings no dreams
    Of any well remembered day.

    I would not have the heavens fair,
    Nor golden clouds, nor breezes mild,
    But days like this, until my heart
    To loss of you is reconciled.

    I would not see you. Every hope
    To know you as you were has ranged.
    I, who am altered, would not find
    The face I loved so greatly changed.

Edgar Lee Masters