Edgar Lee Masters

    I wanted to go away to college
    But rich Aunt Persis wouldn't help me.
    So I made gardens and raked the lawns
    And bought John Alden's books with my earnings
    And toiled for the very means of life.
    I wanted to marry Delia Prickett,
    But how could I do it with what I earned?
    And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy
    Who sat in a wheel-chair half alive
    With her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowed
    The soup ran out of her mouth like a duck -
    A gourmand yet, investing her income
    In mortgages, fretting all the time
    About her notes and rents and papers.
    That day I was sawing wood for her,
    And reading Proudhon in between.
    I went in the house for a drink of water,
    And there she sat asleep in ...

    My life's blossom might have bloomed on all sides
    Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals
    On the side of me which you in the village could see.
    From the dust I lift a voice of protest:
    My flowering side you never saw!
    Ye living ones, ye are fools indeed
    Who do not know the ways of the wind
    And the unseen forces
    That govern the processes of life.

    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...

    The white men played all sorts of jokes on me.
    They took big fish off my hook
    And put little ones on, while I was away
    Getting a stringer, and made me believe
    I hadn't seen aright the fish I had caught.
    When Burr Robbins, circus came to town
    They got the ring master to let a tame leopard
    Into the ring, and made me believe
    I was whipping a wild beast like Samson
    When I, for an offer of fifty dollars,
    Dragged him out to his cage.
    One time I entered my blacksmith shop
    And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling
    Across the floor, as if alive -
    Walter Simmons had put a magnet
    Under the barrel of water.
    Yet everyone of you, you white men,
    Was fooled about fish and about leopards too,
...

    It was moon-light, and the earth sparkled
    With new-fallen frost.
    It was midnight and not a soul abroad.
    Out of the chimney of the court-house
    A gray-hound of smoke leapt and chased
    The northwest wind.
    I carried a ladder to the landing of the stairs
    And leaned it against the frame of the trap-door
    In the ceiling of the portico,
    And I crawled under the roof and amid the rafters
    And flung among the seasoned timbers
    A lighted handful of oil-soaked waste.
    Then I came down and slunk away.
    In a little while the fire-bell rang -
    Clang! Clang! Clang!
    And the Spoon River ladder company
    Came with a dozen buckets and began to pour water
    On the glorious bon-fire, growing hotter
    Higher and...

        I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
    And the silence of the city when it pauses,
    And the silence of a man and a maid,
    And the silence for which music alone finds the word,
    And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin,
    And the silence of the sick
    When their eyes roam about the room.
    And I ask: For the depths
    Of what use is language?
    A beast of the field moans a few times
    When death takes its young:
    And we are voiceless in the presence of realities -
    We cannot speak.

        A curious boy asks an old soldier
    Sitting in front of the grocery store,
    "How did you lose your leg?"
    And the old soldier is struck with silence,
    Or his mind flies away,
...

    Time that has lifted you over them all,
    O'er John and o'er Paul;
    Writ you in capitals, made you the chief
    Word on the leaf,
    How did you, Peter, when ne'er on His breast
    You leaned and were blest,
    And none except Judas and you broke the faith
    To the day of His death,
    You, Peter, the fisherman, worthy of blame,
    Arise to this fame?

    'Twas you in the garden who fell into sleep
    And the watch failed to keep,
    When Jesus was praying and pressed with the weight
    Of the oncoming fate.
    'Twas you in the court of the palace who warmed
    Your hands as you stormed
    At the damsel, denying Him thrice, when she cried:
    "He walked at his side!"
    You, Peter, a wave, a star among clouds, a reed in...

I met Hosea Job on Randolph Street
Who said to me: "I'm going for the train,
I want you with me."

    And it happened then
My mind was hard, as muscles of the back
Grow hard resisting cold or shock or strain
And need the osteopath to be made supple,
To give the nerves and streams of life a chance.
Hosea Job was just the osteopath
To loose, relax my mood. And so I said
"All right" - and went.

        Hosea was a man
Whom nothing touched of danger, or of harm.
His life was just a rare-bit dream, where some one
Seems like to fall before a truck or train -
Instead he walks across them. Or you see
Shadows of falling things, great buildings topple,
Pianos skid like bulls from hellish corners
And chase the oblivious fool who stands and smiles.

        Reading over your letters I find you wrote me
    "My dear boy," or at times "dear boy," and the envelope
    Said "master" - all as I had been your very son,
    And not the orphan whom you adopted.
    Well, you were father to me! And I can recall
    The things you did for me or gave me:
    One time we rode in a box car to Springfield
    To see the greatest show on earth;
    And one time you gave me redtop boots,
    And one time a watch, and one time a gun.
    Well, I grew to gawkiness with a voice
    Like a rooster trying to crow in August
    Hatched in April, we'll say.
    And you went about wrapped up in silence
    With eyes aflame, and I heard little rumors
    Of what they were doing to you, and how
    They wronged you - and we were p...

To a western breeze
A row of golden tulips is nodding.
They flutter their golden wings
In a sudden ecstasy and say:
Something comes to us from beyond,
Out of the sky, beyond the hill
We give it to you.

        *        *        *        *        *

And I walk through rows of jonquils
To a beloved door,
Which you open.
And you stand with the priceless gold of your tulip head
Nodding to me, and saying:
Something comes to me
Out of the mystery of Eternal Beauty -
I give it to you.

        *        *        *        *        *

There is the morning wonder of hyacinth in your eyes,
And the freshness of June iris in your hands,
And the rapture of gardenias in your bosom.
But your voice is the voice of the robin
Singing ...

    Her soul is like a wolf that stands
    Where sunlight falls between the trees
    Of a sparse forest's leafless edge,
    When Spring's first magic moveth these.

    Her soul is like a little brook,
    Thin edged with ice against the leaves,
    Where the wolf drinks and is alone,
    And where the woodbine interweaves.

    A bank late covered by the snow,
    But lighted by the frozen North;
    Her soul is like a little plot
    That one white blossom bringeth forth.

    Her soul is slim, like silver slips,
    And straight, like flags beside a stream.
    Her soul is like a shape that moves
    And changes in a wonder dream.

    Who would pursue her clasps a cloud,
    And taketh sorrow for his zeal.
    Memory shall ...

You wonder at my bright round eyes, my lips
Pressed tightly like a venomous rosette.
Thus do me honor by so much, fond wretch,
And praise my Persian beauty, dulcet voice.
But oh you know me, read me, passion blinds
Your vision not at all, and you have passion
For me and what I am. How can you be so?
Hold me so bear-like, take my lips with yours,
Bury your face in these my russet tresses,
And yet not lose your vision? So I love you,
And fear you too. How idle to deny it
To you who know I fear you.

    Here am I
Who answer you what e'er you choose to ask.
You stride about my rooms and open books,
And say when did he give you this? You pick
His photograph from mantels, dressers, drawl
Out of ironic strength, and smile the while:
"You did not love ...

    Antonio loved the Lady Clare.
    He caught her to him on the stair
    And pressed her breasts and kissed her hair,
    And drew her lips in his, and drew
    Her soul out like a torch's flare.
    Her breath came quick, her blood swirled round;
    Her senses in a vortex swound.
    She tore him loose and turned around,
    And reached her chamber in a bound
    Her cheeks turned to a poppy's hue.

    She closed the door and turned the lock,
    Her breasts and flesh were turned to rock.
    She reeled as drunken from the shock.
    Before her eyes the devils skipped,
    She thought she heard the devils mock.
    For had her soul not been as pure
    As sifted snow, could she endure
    Antonio's passion and be sure
    Against his passi...

    I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker,
    Smiter with whips and swords;
    I, hater of the breakers of the law;
    I, legalist, inexorable and bitter,
    Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden,
    Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes,
    And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow:
    Steel forceps fumbled by a doctor's hand
    Against my boy's head as he entered life
    Made him an idiot. I turned to books of science
    To care for him.
    That's how the world of those whose minds are sick
    Became my work in life, and all my world.
    Poor ruined boy! You were, at last, the potter
    And I and all my deeds of charity
    The vessels of your hand.

For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. - PSALM CIII. 14.


    Oh Lord, when all our bones are thrust
        Beyond the gaze of all but Thine;
    And these blaspheming tongues are dust
        Which babbled of Thy name divine,
    How helpless then to carp or rail
        Against the canons of Thy word;
    Wilt Thou, when thus our spirits fail,
    Have mercy, Lord?

    Here from this ebon speck that floats
        As but a mote within Thine eye,
    Vain sneers and curses from our throats
        Rise to the vault of Thy fair sky:
    Yet when this world of ours is still
        Of this all-wondering, tortured horde,
    And none is left for Thee to kill -
    Have mercy, Lord!

    Thou knowest that our...

Only a few plants up - and not a blossom
My clover didn't catch. What is the matter?
Old John comes by. I show him my result.
Look, John! My clover patch is just a failure,
I wanted you to sow it. Now you see
What comes of letting Hunter do your work.
The ground was not plowed right, or disced perhaps,
Or harrowed fine enough, or too little seed
Was sown.

    But John, who knows a clover field,
Pulls up a plant and cleans the roots of soil
And studies them.

    He says, Look at the roots!
Hunter neglected to inoculate
The seed, for clover seed must always have
Clover bacteria to make it grow,
And blossom. In a thrifty field of clover
The roots are studded thick with tubercles,
Like little warts, made by bacteria.
And somehow these ba...

    I was the laughing-stock of the village,
    Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves -
    Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek
    The same as English.
    For instead of talking free trade,
    Or preaching some form of baptism;
    Instead of believing in the efficacy
    Of walking cracks, picking up pins the right way,
    Seeing the new moon over the right shoulder,
    Or curing rheumatism with blue glass,
    I asserted the sovereignty of my own soul.
    Before Mary Baker G. Eddy even got started
    With what she called science I had mastered the "Bhagavad Gita,"
    And cured my soul, before Mary Began to cure bodies with souls -
    Peace to all worlds!

    Terminus shows the ways and says,
    "All things must have an end."
    Oh, bitter thought we hid away
    When first you were my friend.

    We hid it in the darkest place
    Our hearts had place to hide,
    And took the sweet as from a spring
    Whose waters would abide.

    For neither life nor the wide world
    Has greater store than this: -
    The thought that runs through hands and eyes
    And fills the silences.

    There is a void the agéd world
    Throws over the spent heart;
    When Life has given all she has,
    And Terminus says depart.

    When we must sit with folded hands,
    And see with inward eye
    A void rise like an arctic breath
    To hollow the morrow's sky.

    To-morrow...