Theodore the Poet

    As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hours
    On the shore of the turbid Spoon
    With deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish's burrow,
    Waiting for him to appear, pushing ahead,
    First his waving antennae, like straws of hay,
    And soon his body, colored like soap-stone,
    Gemmed with eyes of jet.
    And you wondered in a trance of thought
    What he knew, what he desired, and why he lived at all.
    But later your vision watched for men and women
    Hiding in burrows of fate amid great cities,
    Looking for the souls of them to come out,
    So that you could see
    How they lived, and for what,
    And why they kept crawling so busily
    Along the sandy way where water fails
    As the summer wanes.

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 Conversation

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Convent

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Helping Hand

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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The Question

    I

    The sea moans and the stars are bright,
    The leaves lisp 'neath a rolling moon.
    I shut my eyes against the night
    And make believe the time is June,
    The June that left us over-soon.

    This is the path and this the place
    We sat and watched the moving sea,
    And I the moonlight on your face.
    We were not happy, woe is me,
    Happiness is but memory!

    It seemeth, now that you are gone,
    My heart a measured pain doth keep:
    Are you now, as I am, alone?
    Do you make merry, do you weep?
    In whose arms are you now asleep?

Edgar Lee Masters

William Marion Reedy

    He sits before you silent as Buddha,
    And then you say
    This man is Rabelais.
    And while you wonder what his stock is,
    English or Irish, you behold his eyes
    As big and brown as those desirable crockies
    With which as boys we used to play.
    And then you see the spherical light that lies
    Just under the iris coloring,
    Before which everything,
    Becomes as plain as day.

    If you have noticed the rolling jowls
    And the face that speaks its chief
    Delight in beer and roast beef
    Before you have seen his eyes, you see
    A man of fleshly jollity,
    Like the friars of old in gowns and cowls
    To make a show of scowls.
    And when he speaks from an orotund depth that growls
    In a humorous way...

Edgar Lee Masters

William Jones

    Once in a while a curious weed unknown to me,
    Needing a name from my books;
    Once in a while a letter from Yeomans.
    Out of the mussel-shells gathered along the shore
    Sometimes a pearl with a glint like meadow rue:
    Then betimes a letter from Tyndall in England,
    Stamped with the stamp of Spoon River.
    I, lover of Nature, beloved for my love of her,
    Held such converse afar with the great
    Who knew her better than I.
    Oh, there is neither lesser nor greater,
    Save as we make her greater and win from her keener delight.
    With shells from the river cover me, cover me.
    I lived in wonder, worshipping earth and heaven.
    I have passed on the march eternal of endless life.

Edgar Lee Masters

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.
    And anchors, for those who never s...

Edgar Lee Masters

William H. Herndon

    There by the window in the old house
    Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley,
    My days of labor closed, sitting out life's decline,
    Day by day did I look in my memory,
    As one who gazes in an enchantress' crystal globe,
    And I saw the figures of the past
    As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream,
    Move through the incredible sphere of time.
    And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant
    And throw himself over a deathless destiny,
    Master of great armies, head of the republic,
    Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song
    The epic hopes of a people;
    At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires,
    Where imperishable shields and swords were beaten out
    From spirits tempered in heaven....

Edgar Lee Masters

Willie Metcalf

    I was Willie Metcalf.
    They used to call me "Doctor Meyers,"
    Because, they said, I looked like him.
    And he was my father, according to Jack McGuire.
    I lived in the livery stable,
    Sleeping on the floor
    Side by side with Roger Baughman's bulldog,
    Or sometimes in a stall.
    I could crawl between the legs of the wildest horses
    Without getting kicked - we knew each other.
    On spring days I tramped through the country
    To get the feeling, which I sometimes lost,
    That I was not a separate thing from the earth.
    I used to lose myself, as if in sleep,
    By lying with eyes half-open in the woods.
    Sometimes I talked with animals - even toads and snakes -
    Anything that had an eye to look into.
    Once I saw...

Edgar Lee Masters