Spoon River Anthology Part 1

Spoon River Anthology.

by Edgar Lee Masters.

The Hill

Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?

All, all are sleeping on the hill.

One pa.s.sed in a fever, One was burned in a mine, One was killed in a brawl, One died in a jail, One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife-- All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith, The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?-- All, all are sleeping on the hill.

One died in shameful child-birth, One of a thwarted love, One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire; One after life in far-away London and Paris Was brought to her little s.p.a.ce by Ella and Kate and Mag-- All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily, And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, And Major Walker who had talked With venerable men of the revolution?-- All, all are sleeping on the hill.

They brought them dead sons from the war, And daughters whom life had crushed, And their children fatherless, crying-- All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where is Old Fiddler Jones Who played with life all his ninety years, Braving the sleet with bared breast, Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin, Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven?

Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago, Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary's Grove, Of what Abe Lincoln said One time at Springfield.

Hod Putt

HERE I lie close to the grave Of Old Bill Piersol, Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who Afterwards took the Bankrupt Law And emerged from it richer than ever Myself grown tired of toil and poverty And beholding how Old Bill and other grew in wealth Robbed a traveler one Night near Proctor's Grove, Killing him unwittingly while doing so, For which I was tried and hanged.

That was my way of going into bankruptcy.

Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways Sleep peacefully side by side.

Ollie McGee

Have you seen walking through the village A Man with downcast eyes and haggard face?

That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty; Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth, And with broken pride and shameful humility, I sank into the grave.

But what think you gnaws at my husband's heart?

The face of what I was, the face of what he made me!

These are driving him to the place where I lie.

In death, therefore, I am avenged.

Fletcher McGee

She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world.

The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars.

She took the pity from my heart, And made it into smiles.

She was a hunk of sculptor's clay, My secret thoughts were fingers: They flew behind her pensive brow And lined it deep with pain.

They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, And drooped the eye with sorrow.

My soul had entered in the clay, Fighting like seven devils.

It was not mine, it was not hers; She held it, but its struggles Modeled a face she hated, And a face I feared to see.

I beat the windows, shook the bolts.

I hid me in a corner And then she died and haunted me, And hunted me for life.

Robert Fulton Tanner

If a man could bite the giant hand That catches and destroys him, As I was bitten by a rat While demonstrating my patent trap, In my hardware store that day.

But a man can never avenge himself On the monstrous ogre Life.

You enter the room that's being born; And then you must live work out your soul, Of the cross-current in life Which Bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame.

Ca.s.sius Hueffer

THEY have chiseled on my stone the words: "His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man."

Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric.

My epitaph should have been: "Life was not gentle to him, And the elements so mixed in him That he made warfare on life In the which he was slain."

While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues, Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph Graven by a fool!

Serepta Mason

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.

Amanda Barker

HENRY got me with child, Knowing that I could not bring forth life Without losing my own.

In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.

Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived That Henry loved me with a husband's love But I proclaim from the dust That he slew me to gratify his hatred.

Chase Henry

IN life I was the town drunkard; When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground.

The which redounded to my good fortune.

For the Protestants bought this lot, And buried my body here, Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas, And of his wife Priscilla.

Take note, ye prudent and pious souls, Of the cross--currents in life Which bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame

Judge Somers