Spoon River Anthology Part 3

They say the ashes of my namesake Were scattered near the pyramid of Caius Cestius Somewhere near Rome.

Flossie Cabanis

FROM Bindle's opera house in the village To Broadway is a great step.

But I tried to take it, my ambition fired When sixteen years of age, Seeing "East Lynne," played here in the village By Ralph Barrett, the coming Romantic actor, who enthralled my soul.

True, I trailed back home, a broken failure, When Ralph disappeared in New York, Leaving me alone in the city-- But life broke him also.

In all this place of silence There are no kindred spirits.

How I wish Duse could stand amid the pathos Of these quiet fields And read these words.

Julia Miller

WE quarreled that morning, For he was sixty--five, and I was thirty, And I was nervous and heavy with the child Whose birth I dreaded.

I thought over the last letter written me By that estranged young soul Whose betrayal of me I had concealed By marrying the old man.

Then I took morphine and sat down to read.

Across the blackness that came over my eyes I see the flickering light of these words even now: "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt Be with me in paradise."

Johnnie Sayre

FATHER, thou canst never know The anguish that smote my heart For my disobedience, the moment I felt The remorseless wheel of the engine Sink into the crying flesh of my leg.

As they carried me to the home of widow Morris I could see the school-house in the valley To which I played truant to steal rides upon the trains.

I prayed to live until I could ask your forgiveness-- And then your tears, your broken words of comfort!

From the solace of that hour I have gained infinite happiness.

Thou wert wise to chisel for me: "Taken from the evil to come."

Charlie French

DID YOU ever find out Which one of the O'Brien boys it was Who snapped the toy pistol against my hand?

There when the flags were red and white In the breeze and "Bucky" Estil Was firing the cannon brought to Spoon River From Vicksburg by Captain Harris; And the lemonade stands were running And the band was playing, To have it all spoiled By a piece of a cap shot under the skin of my hand, And the boys all crowding about me saying: "You'll die of lock-jaw, Charlie, sure."

Oh, dear! oh, dear!

What chum of mine could have done it?

Zenas Witt

I WAS sixteen, and I had the most terrible dreams, And specks before my eyes, and nervous weakness.

And I couldn't remember the books I read, Like Frank Drummer who memorized page after page.

And my back was weak, and I worried and worried, And I was embarra.s.sed and stammered my lessons, And when I stood up to recite I'd forget Everything that I had studied.

Well, I saw Dr. Weese's advertis.e.m.e.nt, And there I read everything in print, Just as if he had known me; And about the dreams which I couldn't help.

So I knew I was marked for an early grave.

And I worried until I had a cough And then the dreams stopped.

And then I slept the sleep without dreams Here on the hill by the river.

Theodore the Poet

As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hours On the sh.o.r.e of the turbid Spoon With deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish's burrow, Waiting for him to appear, pus.h.i.+ng 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.

The Town Marshal

THE: Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal When the saloons were voted out, Because when I was a drinking man, Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede At the saw-mill near Maple Grove.

And they wanted a terrible man, Grim, righteous, strong, courageous, And a hater of saloons and drinkers, To keep law and order in the village.

And they presented me with a loaded cane With which I struck Jack McGuire Before he drew the gun with which he killed The Prohibitionists spent their money in vain To hang him, for in a dream I appeared to one of the twelve jurymen And told him the whole secret story.

Fourteen years were enough for killing me.

Jack McGuire

THEY would have lynched me Had I not been secretly hurried away To the jail at Peoria.

And yet I was going peacefully home, Carrying my jug, a little drunk, When Logan, the marshal, halted me Called me a drunken hound and shook me And, when I cursed him for it, struck me With that Prohibition loaded cane-- All this before I shot him.

They would have hanged me except for this: My lawyer, Kinsey Keene, was helping to land Old Thomas Rhodes for wrecking the bank, And the judge was a friend of Rhodes And wanted him to escape, And Kinsey offered to quit on Rhodes For fourteen years for me.

And the bargain was made.

I served my time And learned to read and write.

Jacob Goodpasture

WHEN Fort Sumter fell and the war came I cried out in bitterness of soul: "O glorious republic now no more!"

When they buried my soldier son To the call of trumpets and the sound of drums My heart broke beneath the weight Of eighty years, and I cried: "Oh, son who died in a cause unjust!

In the strife of Freedom slain!"

And I crept here under the gra.s.s.

And now from the battlements of time, behold: Thrice thirty million souls being bound together In the love of larger truth, Rapt in the expectation of the birth Of a new Beauty, Sprung from Brotherhood and Wisdom.

I with eyes of spirit see the Transfiguration Before you see it.

But ye infinite brood of golden eagles nesting ever higher, Wheeling ever higher, the sun-light wooing Of lofty places of Thought, Forgive the blindness of the departed owl.

Dorcas Gustine

I WAS not beloved of the villagers, But all because I spoke my mind, And met those who transgressed against me With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing Nor secret griefs nor grudges.

That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised, Who hid the wolf under his cloak, Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly.

It is braver, I think, to s.n.a.t.c.h the wolf forth And fight him openly, even in the street, Amid dust and howls of pain.

The tongue may be an unruly member-- But silence poisons the soul.

Berate me who will--I am content.