Penniwit, the Artist

    I lost my patronage in Spoon River
    From trying to put my mind in the camera
    To catch the soul of the person.
    The very best picture I ever took
    Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law.
    He sat upright and had me pause
    Till he got his cross-eye straight.
    Then when he was ready he said "all right."
    And I yelled "overruled" and his eye turned up.
    And I caught him just as he used to look
    When saying "I except."

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 Village Atheist

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Jennie M'Grew

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Circuit Judge

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Benjamin Fraser

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Percival Sharp

    Observe the clasped hands!
    Are they hands of farewell or greeting,
    Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?
    Would it not be well to carve a hand
    With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?
    And yonder is a broken chain,
    The weakest-link idea perhaps - but what was it?
    And lambs, some lying down,
    Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd -
    Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up -
    Why not chisel a few shambles?
    And fallen columns!
    Carve the pedestal, please,
    Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall.
    And compasses and mathematical instruments,
    In irony of the under tenants, ignorance
    Of determinants and the calculus of variations.
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Edgar Lee Masters

Harmon Whitney

    Out of the lights and roar of cities,
    Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River,
    Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken,
    The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt,
    But to hide a wounded pride as well.
    To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds -
    I, gifted with tongues and wisdom,
    Sunk here to the dust of the justice court,
    A picker of rags in the rubbage of spites and wrongs, -
    I, whom fortune smiled on!
    I in a village,
    Spouting to gaping yokels pages of verse,
    Out of the lore of golden years,
    Or raising a laugh with a flash of filthy wit
    When they bought the drinks to kindle my dying mind.
    To be judged by you,
    The soul of me hidden from you,
    With its wound gang...

Edgar Lee Masters

Elliott Hawkins

    I looked like Abraham Lincoln.
    I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship,
    But standing for the rights of property and for order.
    A regular church attendant,
    Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you
    Against the evils of discontent and envy
    And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union,
    And to point to the peril of the Knights of Labor.
    My success and my example are inevitable influences
    In your young men and in generations to come,
    In spite of attacks of newspapers like the Clarion;
    A regular visitor at Springfield
    When the Legislature was in session
    To prevent raids upon the railroads
    And the men building up the state.
    Trusted by them and by you, Spoon River, equally
   ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Archibald Higbie

    I loathed you, Spoon River.
    I tried to rise above you,
    I was ashamed of you.
    I despised you
    As the place of my nativity.
    And there in Rome, among the artists,
    Speaking Italian, speaking French,
    I seemed to myself at times to be free
    Of every trace of my origin.
    I seemed to be reaching the heights of art
    And to breathe the air that the masters breathed
    And to see the world with their eyes.
    But still they'd pass my work and say:
    "What are you driving at, my friend?
    Sometimes the face looks like Apollo's
    At others it has a trace of Lincoln's."
    There was no culture, you know, in Spoon River
    And I burned with shame and held my peace.
    And what could I do, all covered over
    ...

Edgar Lee Masters

Rutherford McDowell

    They brought me ambrotypes
    Of the old pioneers to enlarge.
    And sometimes one sat for me -
    Some one who was in being
    When giant hands from the womb of the world
    Tore the republic.
    What was it in their eyes? -
    For I could never fathom
    That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids,
    And the serene sorrow of their eyes.
    It was like a pool of water,
    Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest,
    Where the leaves fall,
    As you hear the crow of a cock
    From a far - off farm house, seen near the hills
    Where the third generation lives, and the strong men
    And the strong women are gone and forgotten.
    And these grand - children and great grand-children
    Of the pioneers!
    Truly did my camera recor...

Edgar Lee Masters

Seth Compton

    When I died, the circulating library
    Which I built up for Spoon River,
    And managed for the good of inquiring minds,
    Was sold at auction on the public square,
    As if to destroy the last vestige
    Of my memory and influence.
    For those of you who could not see the virtue
    Of knowing Volney's "Ruins" as well as Butler's "Analogy"
    And "Faust" as well as "Evangeline,"
    Were really the power in the village,
    And often you asked me
    "What is the use of knowing the evil in the world?"
    I am out of your way now, Spoon River,
    Choose your own good and call it good.
    For I could never make you see
    That no one knows what is good
    Who knows not what is evil;
    And no one knows what is true
    Who knows no...

Edgar Lee Masters