Thomas Rhodes

    Very well, you liberals,
    And navigators into realms intellectual,
    You sailors through heights imaginative,
    Blown about by erratic currents, tumbling into air pockets,
    You Margaret Fuller Slacks, Petits,
    And Tennessee Claflin Shopes -
    You found with all your boasted wisdom
    How hard at the last it is
    To keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms.
    While we, seekers of earth's treasures
    Getters and hoarders of gold,
    Are self-contained, compact, harmonized,
    Even to the end.

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

Love Is A Madness

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Verdict

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Jefferson Howard

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Hortense Robbins

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Imanuel Ehrenhardt

    I began with Sir William Hamilton's lectures.
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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.
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    Just under the iris coloring,
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    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
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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

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

Astraea

Each the herald is who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;
Each to all is venerable,
Cap-a-pie invulnerable,
Until he write, where all eyes rest,
Slave or master on his breast.
I saw men go up and down,
In the country and the town,
With this tablet on their neck,
'Judgment and a judge we seek.'
Not to monarchs they repair,
Nor to learned jurist's chair;
But they hurry to their peers,
To their kinsfolk and their dears;
Louder than with speech they pray,--
'What am I? companion, say.'
And the friend not hesitates
To assign just place and mates;
Answers not in word or letter,
Yet is understood the better;
Each to each a looking-glass,
Reflects his figure th...

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Jacob Godbey

    How did you feel, you libertarians,
    Who spent your talents rallying noble reasons
    Around the saloon, as if Liberty
    Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar
    Or at a table, guzzling?
    How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you,
    Who almost stoned me for a tyrant
    Garbed as a moralist,
    And as a wry-faced ascetic frowning upon Yorkshire pudding,
    Roast beef and ale and good will and rosy cheer -
    Things you never saw in a grog-shop in your life?
    How did you feel after I was dead and gone,
    And your goddess, Liberty, unmasked as a strumpet,
    Selling out the streets of Spoon River
    To the insolent giants
    Who manned the saloons from afar?
    Did it occur to you that personal liberty
    Is li...

Edgar Lee Masters