The Sign

    There's not a soul on the square,
    And the snow blows up like a sail,
    Or dizzily drifts like a drunken man
    Falling, before the gale.

    And when the wind eddies it rifts
    The snow that lies in drifts;
    And it skims along the walk and sifts
    In stairways, doorways all about
    The steps of the church in an angry rout.
    And one would think that a hungry hound
    Was out in the cold for the sound.

    But I do not seem to mind
    The snow that makes one blind,
    Nor the crying voice of the wind,
    I hate to hear the creak of the sign
    Of Harmon Whitney, attorney at law:
    With its rhythmic monotone of awe.
    And neither a moan nor yet a whine,
    Nor a cry of pain, one can't define
    The sound of a creaking sign.

    Especially if the sky be bleak,
    And no one stirs however you seek,
    And every time you hear it creak
    You wonder why they leave it stay
    When a man is buried and hidden away
    Many a day!

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. Gregory Wenner

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Fiddler Jones

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Barry Holden

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Father Malloy

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.

Christmas At Indian Point

Who is that calling through the night,
A wail that dies when the wind roars?
We heard it first on Shipley's Hill,
It faded out at Comingoer's.

Along five miles of wintry road
A horseman galloped with a cry,
"'Twas two o'clock," said Herman Pointer,
"When I heard clattering hoofs go by."

"I flung the winder up to listen;
I heerd him there on Gordon's Ridge;
I heerd the loose boards bump and rattle
When he went over Houghton's Bridge."

Said Roger Ragsdale: "I was doctorin'
A heifer in the barn, and then
My boy says: 'Pap, that's Billy Paris.'
'There,' says my boy, it is again."

"Says I: 'That kain't be Billy Paris,
We seed 'im at the Christmas tree.
It's two o'clock,' says I, 'and Billy
I seed go home with Emily.'

Edgar Lee Masters

When Under The Icy Eaves

    When under the icy eaves
        The swallow heralds the sun,
    And the dove for its lost mate grieves
        And the young lambs play and run;
    When the sea is a plane of glass,
        And the blustering winds are still,
    And the strength of the thin snows pass
        In mists o'er the tawny hill -
    The spirit of life awakes
    In the fresh flags by the lakes.

    When the sick man seeks the air,
        And the graves of the dead grow green,
    Where the children play unaware
        Of the faces no longer seen;
    When all we have felt or can feel,
        And all we are or have been,
    And all the heart can hide or reveal,
        Knocks gently, and enters in: -
    The spirit of life awakes,
    In the fresh fla...

Edgar Lee Masters

Old Man Winter

There is nothing at all to do to-day.
I can't go out and run and play;
For it's raining and snowing and sleeting, too;
And Old Man Winter he is to blame.
And I just sit here and think it a shame.
There is nothing at all to do.

I stand or sit at the windowpane,
And look at the snow and look at the rain,
And the old dead leaves go flying by;
For Wild Man Wind is making a din;
And mother says that it is a sin:
And I'm almost ready to cry.

I can't go out in the wind and wet,
And it's a long time yet till the table's set,
And we are ready for toast and tea:
It's a long time too till the lamp is lit,
And my father's home and I can sit,
And he can read to me.

And I can not play or do a thing;
And there's no one coming visiting,
F...

Madison Julius Cawein

Lost

"Black is the sky, but the land is white -
    (O the wind, the snow and the storm!) -
Father, where is our boy to-night?
    Pray to God he is safe and warm."

"Mother, mother, why should you fear?
    Safe is he, and the Arctic moon
Over his cabin shines so clear -
    Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

"It's getting dark awful sudden. Say, this is mighty queer!
Where in the world have I got to? It's still and black as a tomb.
I reckoned the camp was yonder, I figured the trail was here -
Nothing! Just draw and valley packed with quiet and gloom;
Snow that comes down like feathers, thick and gobby and gray;
Night that looks spiteful ugly - seems that I've lost my way.

"The cold's got an edge like a jackknife - it must be forty belo...

Robert William Service

Signs And Tokens

Said the red-cloaked crone
In a whispered moan:

"The dead man was limp
When laid in his chest;
Yea, limp; and why
But to signify
That the grave will crimp
Ere next year's sun
Yet another one
Of those in that house -
It may be the best -
For its endless drowse!"

Said the brown-shawled dame
To confirm the same:

"And the slothful flies
On the rotting fruit
Have been seen to wear
While crawling there
Crape scarves, by eyes
That were quick and acute;
As did those that had pitched
On the cows by the pails,
And with flaps of their tails
Were far away switched."

Said the third in plaid,
Each word being weighed:

"And trotting does
In the park, in the lane,
And just outside
Th...

Thomas Hardy

The White Evening.

From gray, bleak hills 'neath steely skies
Thro' beards of ice the forests roar;
Along the river's humming shore
The skimming skater bird-like flies.

On windy meads where wave white breaks,
Where fettered briers' glist'ning hands
Reach to the cold moon's ghastly lands,
Hoots the lorn owl, and crouching quakes.

With frowsy snow blanched is the world;
Stiff sweeps the wind thro' murmuring pines,
Then fiend-like deep-entangled whines
Thro' the dead oak, that vagrant twirled

Phantoms the cliff o'er the wild wold:
Ghost-vested willows rim the stream,
Low hang lank limbs where in a dream
The houseless hare leaps o'er the cold

On snow-tressed crags that twinkling flash,
Like champions mailed for clanking war,
Glares down large Phosph...

Madison Julius Cawein