Zilpha Marsh

    At four o'clock in late October
    I sat alone in the country school-house
    Back from the road, mid stricken fields,
    And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane,
    And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove,
    With its open door blurring the shadows
    With the spectral glow of a dying fire.
    In an idle mood I was running the planchette -
    All at once my wrist grew limp,
    And my hand moved rapidly over the board,
    'Till the name of "Charles Guiteau" was spelled,
    Who threatened to materialize before me.
    I rose and fled from the room bare-headed
    Into the dusk, afraid of my gift.
    And after that the spirits swarmed -
    Chaucer, Caesar, Poe and Marlowe,
    Cleopatra and Mrs. Surratt -
    Wherever I went, with messages, -
    Mere trifling twaddle, Spoon River agreed.
    You talk nonsense to children, don't you?
    And suppose I see what you never saw
    And never heard of and have no word for,
    I must talk nonsense when you ask me
    What it is I see!

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

Calvin Campbell

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Theodore the Poet

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Sir Galahad

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Shack Dye

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Alfred Moir

    Why was I not devoured by self-contempt,
    And rotted down by indifference
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Edgar Lee Masters

Carl Hamblin

    The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked,
    And I was tarred and feathered,
    For publishing this on the day the
    Anarchists were hanged in Chicago:
    "l saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes
    Standing on the steps of a marble temple.
    Great multitudes passed in front of her,
    Lifting their faces to her imploringly.
    In her left hand she held a sword.
    She was brandishing the sword,
    Sometimes striking a child, again a laborer,
    Again a slinking woman, again a lunatic.
    In her right hand she held a scale;
    Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed
    By those who dodged the strokes of the sword.
    A man in a black gown read from a manuscript:
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Edgar Lee Masters

Henry C. Calhoun

    I reached the highest place in Spoon River,
    But through what bitterness of spirit!
    The face of my father, sitting speechless,
    Child-like, watching his canaries,
    And looking at the court-house window
    Of the county judge's room,
    And his admonitions to me to seek
    My own in life, and punish Spoon River
    To avenge the wrong the people did him,
    Filled me with furious energy
    To seek for wealth and seek for power.
    But what did he do but send me along
    The path that leads to the grove of the Furies?
    I followed the path and I tell you this:
    On the way to the grove you'll pass the Fates,
    Shadow-eyed, bent over their weaving.
    Stop for a moment, and if you see
    The thread of revenge leap out of the s...

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.
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    The soul of me hidden from you,
    With its wound gang...

Edgar Lee Masters

Indignation" Jones

    You would not believe, would you
    That I came from good Welsh stock?
    That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?
    And of more direct lineage than the
    New Englanders And Virginians of Spoon River?
    You would not believe that I had been to school
    And read some books.
    You saw me only as a run-down man
    With matted hair and beard
    And ragged clothes.
    Sometimes a man's life turns into a cancer
    From being bruised and continually bruised,
    And swells into a purplish mass
    Like growths on stalks of corn.
    Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life
    Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow,
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Edgar Lee Masters

Ida Frickey

    Nothing in life is alien to you:
    I was a penniless girl from Summum
    Who stepped from the morning train in Spoon River.
    All the houses stood before me with closed doors
    And drawn shades - l was barred out;
    I had no place or part in any of them.
    And I walked past the old McNeely mansion,
    A castle of stone 'mid walks and gardens
    With workmen about the place on guard
    And the County and State upholding it
    For its lordly owner, full of pride.
    I was so hungry I had a vision:
    I saw a giant pair of scissors
    Dip from the sky, like the beam of a dredge,
    And cut the house in two like a curtain.
    But at the "Commercial" I saw a man
    Who winked at me as I asked for work -
    It was Wash McNeely's son.

Edgar Lee Masters