Mrs. Merritt

    Silent before the jury
    Returning no word to the judge when he asked me
    If I had aught to say against the sentence,
    Only shaking my head.
    What could I say to people who thought
    That a woman of thirty-five was at fault
    When her lover of nineteen killed her husband?
    Even though she had said to him over and over,
    "Go away, Elmer, go far away,
    I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body:
    You will do some terrible thing."
    And just as I feared, he killed my husband;
    With which I had nothing to do, before
    God Silent for thirty years in prison
    And the iron gates of Joliet
    Swung as the gray and silent trusties
    Carried me out in a coffin.

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

Flossie Cabanis

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Jack McGuire

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Answer

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Alfonso Churchill

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 Verdict

    "An inquisition taken for the people
    Of the State of Illinois here at LeRoy,
    County aforesaid, on the 7th of August,
    Anna Domini, nineteen hundred nineteen,
    Before me, William Merival, coroner
    For the said County, viewing here the body
    Of Elenor Murray lying dead, upon
    The oath of six good lawful men, the same
    Of the said County, being duly sworn
    To inquire for the said people into all
    The circumstances of her death, the said
    Elenor Murray, and by whom the same
    Was brought about, and in what manner, when,
    And where she came to death, do say upon
    Their oaths, that Elenor Murray lying dead
    In the office of the coroner at LeRoy
    Came to her death on August 7th aforesaid
    Upon the east shor...

Edgar Lee Masters

Rev. Percy Ferguson

    The Rev. Percy Ferguson, patrician
    Vicar of Christ, companion of the strong,
    And member of the inner shrine, where men
    Observe the rituals of the golden calf;
    A dilettante, and writer for the press
    Upon such themes as optimism, order,
    Obedience, beauty, law, while Elenor Murray's
    Life was being weighed by Merival
    Preached in disparagement of Merival
    Upon a fatal Sunday, as it chanced,
    Too near to doom's day for the clergyman.
    For, as the word had gone about that waste
    In lives preoccupied this Merival,
    And many talked of waste, and spoke a life
    Where waste had been in whole or part - the pulpit
    Should take a hand, thought Ferguson. And so
    The Reverend Percy Ferguson preached thus
    To a...

Edgar Lee Masters

Mrs. Gregory Wenner

    Gregory Wenner's wife was by the sea
    When Gregory Wenner killed himself, half sick
    And half malingering, and otiose.
    She wept, sent for a doctor to be braced,
    Induced a friend to travel with her west
    To bury Gregory Wenner; did not know
    That Gregory Wenner was in money straits
    Until she read the paper, or had lost
    His building in the loop. The man had kept
    His worries from her ailing ears, was glad
    To keep her traveling, or taking cures.

    She came and buried Gregory Wenner; found
    His fortune just a shell, the building lost,
    A little money in the bank, a store
    Far out on Lake Street, forty worthless acres
    In northern Indiana, twenty lots
    In some Montana village. Here she was,
    A wi...

Edgar Lee Masters

Rosie Roberts

    I was sick, but more than that, I was mad
    At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life.
    So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria:
    "l am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River,
    Gradually wasting away.
    But come and take me, I killed the son
    Of the merchant prince, in Madam Lou's
    And the papers that said he killed himself
    In his home while cleaning a hunting gun -
    Lied like the devil to hush up scandal
    For the bribe of advertising.
    In my room I shot him, at Madam Lou's,
    Because he knocked me down when I said
    That, in spite of all the money he had,
    I'd see my lover that night."

Edgar Lee Masters

The Governor

    I'm home at last. How long were you asleep?
    I startled you. The time? It's midnight past.
    Put on your slippers and your robe, my dear,
    And make some coffee for me - what a night!
    Yes, tell you? I shall tell you everything.
    I must tell someone, and a wife should know
    The workings of a governor's mind - no one
    Could guess what turned the scale to save this man
    Who would have died to-morrow, but for me.
    That's fine. This coffee helps me. As I said
    This night has been a trial. Well, you know
    I told these lawyers they could come at eight,
    And so they came. A seasoned lawyer one,
    The other young and radical, both full
    Of sentiment of some sort. And there you sit,
    And do not say a word of disapproval.
  ...

Edgar Lee Masters

The Convent

    Elenor Murray stole away from Nice
    Before her furlough ended, tense to see
    Something of Italy, and planned to go
    To Genoa, explore the ancient town
    Of Christopher Columbus, if she might
    Elude the regulation, as she did,
    In leaving Nice for Italy. But for her
    Always the dream, and always the defeat
    Of what she dreamed.

    She found herself in Florence
    And saw the city. But the weariness
    Of labor and her illness came again
    At intervals, and on such days she lay
    And heard the hours toll, wished for death and wept,
    Being alone and sorrowful.

    On a morning
    She rose and looked for galleries, came at last
    Into the Via Gino Capponi
    And saw a little church and entered in,

Edgar Lee Masters