Chapter M (3)

I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins, Born in a cottage near the grist-mill, Reared in the mansion there on the hill, With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate. How proud my mother was of the mansion How proud of father’s rise in the world! And how my father loved and watched us, And guarded our happiness. But I believe the house was a curse, For father’s fortune was little beside it; And when my husband found he had married A girl who was really poor, He taunted me with the spires, And called the house a fraud on the world, A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopes Of a dowry not to be had; And a man while selling his vote Should get enough from the people’s betrayal To wall the whole of his family in. He vexed my life till I went back home And lived like an old maid till I died, Keeping house for father.

Hortense Robbins

My name used to be in the papers daily As having dined somewhere, Or traveled somewhere, Or rented a house in Paris, Where I entertained the nobility. I was forever eating or traveling, Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden. Now I am here to do honor To Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang. No one cares now where I dined, Or lived, or whom I entertained, Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden.

Batterton Dobyns

Did my widow flit about From Mackinac to Los Angeles, Resting and bathing and sitting an hour Or more at the table over soup and meats And delicate sweets and coffee? I was cut down in my prime From overwork and anxiety. But I thought all along, whatever happens I’ve kept my insurance up, And there’s something in the bank, And a section of land in Manitoba. But just as I slipped I had a vision In a last delirium: I saw myself lying nailed in a box With a white lawn tie and a boutonnière, And my wife was sitting by a window Some place afar overlooking the sea; She seemed so rested, ruddy and fat, Although her hair was white. And she smiled and said to a colored waiter: “Another slice of roast beef, George. Here’s a nickel for your trouble.”

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 liberty of the mind, Rather than of the belly?

Walter Simmons

My parents thought that I would be As great as Edison or greater: For as a boy I made balloons And wondrous kites and toys with clocks And little engines with tracks to run on And telephones of cans and thread. I played the cornet and painted pictures, Modeled in clay and took the part Of the villain in the “Octoroon.” But then at twenty-one I married And had to live, and so, to live I learned the trade of making watches And kept the jewelry store on the square, Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking,— Not of business, but of the engine I studied the calculus to build. And all Spoon River watched and waited To see it work, but it never worked. And a few kind souls believed my genius Was somehow hampered by the store. It wasn’t true. The truth was this: I did not have the brains.

Tom Beatty

I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard, For I tried the rights of property, Although by lamp-light, for thirty years, In that poker room in the opera house. And I say to you that Life’s a gambler Head and shoulders above us all. No mayor alive can close the house. And if you lose, you can squeal as you will; You’ll not get back your money. He makes the percentage hard to conquer; He stacks the cards to catch your weakness And not to meet your strength. And he gives you seventy years to play: For if you cannot win in seventy You cannot win at all. So, if you lose, get out of the room— Get out of the room when your time is up. It’s mean to sit and fumble the cards And curse your losses, leaden-eyed, Whining to try and try.

Roy Butler

If the learned Supreme Court of Illinois Got at the secret of every case As well as it does a case of rape It would be the greatest court in the world. A jury, of neighbors mostly, with “Butch” Weldy As foreman, found me guilty in ten minutes And two ballots on a case like this: Richard Bandle and I had trouble over a fence And my wife and Mrs. Bandle quarreled As to whether Ipava was a finer town than Table Grove. I awoke one morning with the love of God Brimming over my heart, so I went to see Richard To settle the fence in the spirit of Jesus Christ. I knocked on the door, and his wife opened; She smiled and asked me in. I entered— She slammed the door and began to scream, “Take your hands off, you low down varlet!” Just then her husband entered. I waved my hands, choked up with words. He went for his gun, and I ran out. But neither the Supreme Court nor my wife Believed a word she said.

Searcy Foote

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 her chair, And Proudhon lying on the table, And a bottle of chloroform on the book, She used sometimes for an aching tooth! I poured the chloroform on a handkerchief And held it to her nose till she died.— Oh Delia, Delia, you and Proudhon Steadied my hand, and the coroner Said she died of heart failure. I married Delia and got the money— A joke on you, Spoon River?

Edmund Pollard

I would I had thrust my hands of flesh Into the disk-flowers bee-infested, Into the mirror-like core of fire Of the light of life, the sun of delight. For what are anthers worth or petals Or halo-rays? Mockeries, shadows Of the heart of the flower, the central flame All is yours, young passer-by; Enter the banquet room with the thought; Don’t sidle in as if you were doubtful Whether you’re welcome—the feast is yours! Nor take but a little, refusing more With a bashful “Thank you”, when you’re hungry. Is your soul alive? Then let it feed! Leave no balconies where you can climb; Nor milk-white bosoms where you can rest; Nor golden heads with pillows to share; Nor wine cups while the wine is sweet; Nor ecstasies of body or soul, You will die, no doubt, but die while living In depths of azure, rapt and mated, Kissing the queen-bee, Life!

Thomas Trevelyan

Reading in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys, Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela, The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne, And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing Till the gods made Philomela a nightingale, Lute of the rising moon, and Procne a swallow Oh livers and artists of Hellas centuries gone, Sealing in little thuribles dreams and wisdom, Incense beyond all price, forever fragrant, A breath whereof makes clear the eyes of the soul How I inhaled its sweetness here in Spoon River! The thurible opening when I had lived and learned How all of us kill the children of love, and all of us, Knowing not what we do, devour their flesh; And all of us change to singers, although it be But once in our lives, or change—alas!—to swallows, To twitter amid cold winds and falling leaves!

Percival Sharp

Observe the clasped hands! Are they hands of farewell or greeting, Hands that I helped or hands that helped me? Would it not be well to carve a hand With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus? And yonder is a broken chain, The weakest-link idea perhaps— But what was it? And lambs, some lying down, Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd— Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up— Why not chisel a few shambles? And fallen columns! Carve the pedestal, please, Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall. And compasses and mathematical instruments, In irony of the under tenants, ignorance Of determinants and the calculus of variations. And anchors, for those who never sailed. And gates ajar—yes, so they were; You left them open and stray goats entered your garden. And an eye watching like one of the Arimaspi— So did you—with one eye. And angels blowing trumpets—you are heralded— It is your horn and your angel and your family’s estimate. It is all very well, but for myself I know I stirred certain vibrations in Spoon River Which are my true epitaph, more lasting than stone.

Hiram Scates

I tried to win the nomination For president of the County-board And I made speeches all over the County Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival, As an enemy of the people, In league with the master-foes of man. Young idealists, broken warriors, Hobbling on one crutch of hope, Souls that stake their all on the truth, Losers of worlds at heaven’s bidding, Flocked about me and followed my voice As the savior of the County. But Solomon won the nomination; And then I faced about, And rallied my followers to his standard, And made him victor, made him King Of the Golden Mountain with the door Which closed on my heels just as I entered, Flattered by Solomon’s invitation, To be the County—board’s secretary. And out in the cold stood all my followers: Young idealists, broken warriors Hobbling on one crutch of hope— Souls that staked their all on the truth, Losers of worlds at heaven’s bidding, Watching the Devil kick the Millennium Over the Golden Mountain.

Peleg Poague

Horses and men are just alike. There was my stallion, Billy Lee, Black as a cat and trim as a deer, With an eye of fire, keen to start, And he could hit the fastest speed Of any racer around Spoon River. But just as you’d think he couldn’t lose, With his lead of fifty yards or more, He’d rear himself and throw the rider, And fall back over, tangled up, Completely gone to pieces. You see he was a perfect fraud: He couldn’t win, he couldn’t work, He was too light to haul or plow with, And no one wanted colts from him. And when I tried to drive him—well, He ran away and killed me.

Jeduthan Hawley

There would be a knock at the door And I would arise at midnight and go to the shop, Where belated travelers would hear me hammering Sepulchral boards and tacking satin. And often I wondered who would go with me To the distant land, our names the theme For talk, in the same week, for I’ve observed Two always go together. Chase Henry was paired with Edith Conant; And Jonathan Somers with Willie Metcalf; And Editor Hamblin with Francis Turner, When he prayed to live longer than Editor Whedon, And Thomas Rhodes with widow McFarlane; And Emily Sparks with Barry Holden; And Oscar Hummel with Davis Matlock; And Editor Whedon with Fiddler Jones; And Faith Matheny with Dorcas Gustine. And I, the solemnest man in town, Stepped off with Daisy Fraser.

Abel Melveny

I bought every kind of machine that’s known— Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers, Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers— And all of them stood in the rain and sun, Getting rusted, warped and battered, For I had no sheds to store them in, And no use for most of them. And toward the last, when I thought it over, There by my window, growing clearer About myself, as my pulse slowed down, And looked at one of the mills I bought— Which I didn’t have the slightest need of, As things turned out, and I never ran— A fine machine, once brightly varnished, And eager to do its work, Now with its paint washed off— I saw myself as a good machine That Life had never used.

Oaks Tutt

My mother was for woman’s rights And my father was the rich miller at London Mills. I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them. When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries In order to learn how to reform the world. I traveled through many lands. I saw the ruins of Rome And the ruins of Athens, And the ruins of Thebes. And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis. There I was caught up by wings of flame, And a voice from heaven said to me: “Injustice, Untruth destroyed them. Go forth Preach Justice! Preach Truth!” And I hastened back to Spoon River To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work. They all saw a strange light in my eye. And by and by, when I talked, they discovered What had come in my mind. Then Jonathan Swift Somers challenged me to debate The subject, (I taking the negative): “Pontius Pilate, the Greatest Philosopher of the World.” And he won the debate by saying at last, “Before you reform the world, Mr. Tutt Please answer the question of Pontius Pilate: “What is Truth?”

Elliott Hawkins

I looked like Abraham Lincoln. I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship, But standing for the rights of property and for order. A regular church attendant, Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you Against the evils of discontent and envy And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union, And to point to the peril of the Knights of Labor. My success and my example are inevitable influences In your young men and in generations to come, In spite of attacks of newspapers like the _Clarion;_ A regular visitor at Springfield When the Legislature was in session To prevent raids upon the railroads And the men building up the state. Trusted by them and by you, Spoon River, equally In spite of the whispers that I was a lobbyist. Moving quietly through the world, rich and courted. Dying at last, of course, but lying here Under a stone with an open book carved upon it And the words _“Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”_ And now, you world-savers, who reaped nothing in life And in death have neither stones nor epitaphs, How do you like your silence from mouths stopped With the dust of my triumphant career?

Voltaire Johnson

Why did you bruise me with your rough places If you did not want me to tell you about them? And stifle me with your stupidities, If you did not want me to expose them? And nail me with the nails of cruelty, If you did not want me to pluck the nails forth And fling them in your faces? And starve me because I refused to obey you, If you did not want me to undermine your tyranny? I might have been as soul serene As William Wordsworth except for you! But what a coward you are, Spoon River, When you drove me to stand in a magic circle By the sword of Truth described! And then to whine and curse your burns, And curse my power who stood and laughed Amid ironical lightning!

English Thornton

Here! You sons of the men Who fought with Washington at Valley Forge, And whipped Black Hawk at Starved Rock, Arise! Do battle with the descendants of those Who bought land in the loop when it was waste sand, And sold blankets and guns to the army of Grant, And sat in legislatures in the early days, Taking bribes from the railroads! Arise! Do battle with the fops and bluffs, The pretenders and figurantes of the society column And the yokel souls whose daughters marry counts; And the parasites on great ideas, And the noisy riders of great causes, And the heirs of ancient thefts. Arise! And make the city yours, And the State yours— You who are sons of the hardy yeomanry of the forties! By God! If you do not destroy these vermin My avenging ghost will wipe out Your city and your state.

Enoch Dunlap

How many times, during the twenty years I was your leader, friends of Spoon River, Did you neglect the convention and caucus, And leave the burden on my hands Of guarding and saving the people’s cause?— Sometimes because you were ill; Or your grandmother was ill; Or you drank too much and fell asleep; Or else you said: “He is our leader, All will be well; he fights for us; We have nothing to do but follow.” But oh, how you cursed me when I fell, And cursed me, saying I had betrayed you, In leaving the caucus room for a moment, When the people’s enemies, there assembled, Waited and watched for a chance to destroy The Sacred Rights of the People. You common rabble! I left the caucus To go to the urinal.

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—I 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. He proved the link in the chain of title To half my ownership of the mansion, Through a breach of promise suit—the scissors. So, you see, the house, from the day I was born, Was only waiting for me.

Seth Compton

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 not what is false.

Felix Schmidt

It was only a little house of two rooms— Almost like a child’s play-house— With scarce five acres of ground around it; And I had so many children to feed And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick From bearing children. One day lawyer Whitney came along And proved to me that Christian Dallman, Who owned three thousand acres of land, Had bought the eighty that adjoined me In eighteen hundred and seventy-one For eleven dollars, at a sale for taxes, While my father lay in his mortal illness. So the quarrel arose and I went to law. But when we came to the proof, A survey of the land showed clear as day That Dallman’s tax deed covered my ground And my little house of two rooms. It served me right for stirring him up. I lost my case and lost my place. I left the court room and went to work As Christian Dallman’s tenant.

Schrœder The Fisherman

I sat on the bank above Bernadotte And dropped crumbs in the water, Just to see the minnows bump each other, Until the strongest got the prize. Or I went to my little pasture, Where the peaceful swine were asleep in the wallow, Or nosing each other lovingly, And emptied a basket of yellow corn, And watched them push and squeal and bite, And trample each other to get the corn. And I saw how Christian Dallman’s farm, Of more than three thousand acres, Swallowed the patch of Felix Schmidt, As a bass will swallow a minnow And I say if there’s anything in man— Spirit, or conscience, or breath of God That makes him different from fishes or hogs, I’d like to see it work!

Richard Bone

When I first came to Spoon River I did not know whether what they told me Was true or false. They would bring me the epitaph And stand around the shop while I worked And say “He was so kind,” “He was so wonderful,” “She was the sweetest woman,” “He was a consistent Christian.” And I chiseled for them whatever they wished, All in ignorance of the truth. But later, as I lived among the people here, I knew how near to the life Were the epitaphs that were ordered for them as they died. But still I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel And made myself party to the false chronicles Of the stones, Even as the historian does who writes Without knowing the truth, Or because he is influenced to hide it.

Silas Dement

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 brighter, till the walls fell in And the limestone columns where Lincoln stood Crashed like trees when the woodman fells them. When I came back from Joliet There was a new court house with a dome. For I was punished like all who destroy The past for the sake of the future.

Dillard Sissman

The buzzards wheel slowly In wide circles, in a sky Faintly hazed as from dust from the road. And a wind sweeps through the pasture where I lie Beating the grass into long waves. My kite is above the wind, Though now and then it wobbles, Like a man shaking his shoulders; And the tail streams out momentarily, Then sinks to rest. And the buzzards wheel and wheel, Sweeping the zenith with wide circles Above my kite. And the hills sleep. And a farm house, white as snow, Peeps from green trees—far away. And I watch my kite, For the thin moon will kindle herself ere long, Then she will swing like a pendulum dial To the tail of my kite. A spurt of flame like a water-dragon Dazzles my eyes— I am shaken as a banner!

Jonathan Houghton

There is the caw of a crow, And the hesitant song of a thrush. There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away, And the voice of a plowman on Shipley’s hill. The forest beyond the orchard is still With midsummer stillness; And along the road a wagon chuckles, Loaded with corn, going to Atterbury. And an old man sits under a tree asleep, And an old woman crosses the road, Coming from the orchard with a bucket of blackberries. And a boy lies in the grass Near the feet of the old man, And looks up at the sailing clouds, And longs, and longs, and longs For what, he knows not: For manhood, for life, for the unknown world! Then thirty years passed, And the boy returned worn out by life And found the orchard vanished, And the forest gone, And the house made over, And the roadway filled with dust from automobiles— And himself desiring The Hill!

E. C. Culbertson

Is it true, Spoon River, That in the hall—way of the New Court House There is a tablet of bronze Containing the embossed faces Of Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhodes? And is it true that my successful labors In the County Board, without which Not one stone would have been placed on another, And the contributions out of my own pocket To build the temple, are but memories among the people, Gradually fading away, and soon to descend With them to this oblivion where I lie? In truth, I can so believe. For it is a law of the Kingdom of Heaven That whoso enters the vineyard at the eleventh hour Shall receive a full day’s pay. And it is a law of the Kingdom of this World That those who first oppose a good work Seize it and make it their own, When the corner—stone is laid, And memorial tablets are erected.

Shack Dye

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, And you didn’t know any more than the horse-shoes did What moved you about Spoon River.

Hildrup Tubbs

I made two fights for the people. First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon Of independence, for reform, and was defeated. Next I used my rebel strength To capture the standard of my old party— And I captured it, but I was defeated. Discredited and discarded, misanthropical, I turned to the solace of gold And I used my remnant of power To fasten myself like a saprophyte Upon the putrescent carcass Of Thomas Rhodes, bankrupt bank, As assignee of the fund. Everyone now turned from me. My hair grew white, My purple lusts grew gray, Tobacco and whisky lost their savor And for years Death ignored me As he does a hog.

Henry Tripp

The bank broke and I lost my savings. I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River And I made up my mind to run away And leave my place in life and my family; But just as the midnight train pulled in, Quick off the steps jumped Cully Green And Martin Vise, and began to fight To settle their ancient rivalry, Striking each other with fists that sounded Like the blows of knotted clubs. Now it seemed to me that Cully was winning, When his bloody face broke into a grin Of sickly cowardice, leaning on Martin And whining out “We’re good friends, Mart, You know that I’m your friend.” But a terrible punch from Martin knocked him Around and around and into a heap. And then they arrested me as a witness, And I lost my train and staid in Spoon River To wage my battle of life to the end. Oh, Cully Green, you were my savior— You, so ashamed and drooped for years, Loitering listless about the streets, And tying rags round your festering soul, Who failed to fight it out.

Granville Calhoun

I wanted to be County Judge One more term, so as to round out a service Of thirty years. But my friends left me and joined my enemies, And they elected a new man. Then a spirit of revenge seized me, And I infected my four sons with it, And I brooded upon retaliation, Until the great physician, Nature, Smote me through with paralysis To give my soul and body a rest. Did my sons get power and money? Did they serve the people or yoke them, To till and harvest fields of self? For how could they ever forget My face at my bed-room window, Sitting helpless amid my golden cages Of singing canaries, Looking at the old court-house?

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 shuttle Then quickly snatch from Atropos The shears and cut it, lest your sons And the children of them and their children Wear the envenomed robe.

Alfred Moir

Why was I not devoured by self-contempt, And rotted down by indifference And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones? Why, with all of my errant steps Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke? And why, though I stood at Burchard’s bar, As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys To buy the drinks, did the curse of drink Fall on me like rain that runs off, Leaving the soul of me dry and clean? And why did I never kill a man Like Jack McGuire? But instead I mounted a little in life, And I owe it all to a book I read. But why did I go to Mason City, Where I chanced to see the book in a window, With its garish cover luring my eye? And why did my soul respond to the book, As I read it over and over?

Perry Zoll

My thanks, friends of the County Scientific Association, For this modest boulder, And its little tablet of bronze. Twice I tried to join your honored body, And was rejected And when my little brochure On the intelligence of plants Began to attract attention You almost voted me in. After that I grew beyond the need of you And your recognition. Yet I do not reject your memorial stone Seeing that I should, in so doing, Deprive you of honor to yourselves.

Dippold the Optician

What do you see now? Globes of red, yellow, purple. Just a moment! And now? My father and mother and sisters. Yes! And now? Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces. Try this. A field of grain—a city. Very good! And now? A young woman with angels bending over her. A heavier lens! And now? Many women with bright eyes and open lips. Try this. Just a goblet on a table. Oh I see! Try this lens! Just an open space—I see nothing in particular. Well, now! Pine trees, a lake, a summer sky. That’s better. And now? A book. Read a page for me. I can’t. My eyes are carried beyond the page. Try this lens. Depths of air. Excellent! And now! Light, just light making everything below it a toy world. Very well, we’ll make the glasses accordingly.

Magrady Graham

Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor? For when the returns began to come in And Cleveland was sweeping the East It was too much for you, poor old heart, Who had striven for democracy In the long, long years of defeat. And like a watch that is worn I felt you growing slower until you stopped. Tell me, was Altgeld elected, And what did he do? Did they bring his head on a platter to a dancer, Or did he triumph for the people? For when I saw him And took his hand, The child-like blueness of his eyes Moved me to tears, And there was an air of eternity about him, Like the cold, clear light that rests at dawn On the hills!

Archibald Higbie

I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, I was ashamed of you. I despised you As the place of my nativity. And there in Rome, among the artists, Speaking Italian, speaking French, I seemed to myself at times to be free Of every trace of my origin. I seemed to be reaching the heights of art And to breathe the air that the masters breathed And to see the world with their eyes. But still they’d pass my work and say: “What are you driving at, my friend? Sometimes the face looks like Apollo’s At others it has a trace of Lincoln’s.” There was no culture, you know, in Spoon River And I burned with shame and held my peace. And what could I do, all covered over And weighted down with western soil Except aspire, and pray for another Birth in the world, with all of Spoon River Rooted out of my soul?

Tom Merritt

At first I suspected something— She acted so calm and absent-minded. And one day I heard the back door shut As I entered the front, and I saw him slink Back of the smokehouse into the lot And run across the field. And I meant to kill him on sight. But that day, walking near Fourth Bridge Without a stick or a stone at hand, All of a sudden I saw him standing Scared to death, holding his rabbits, And all I could say was, “Don’t, Don’t, Don’t,” As he aimed and fired at my heart.

Mrs. Merritt

Silent before the jury Returning no word to the judge when he asked me If I had aught to say against the sentence, Only shaking my head. What could I say to people who thought That a woman of thirty-five was at fault When her lover of nineteen killed her husband? Even though she had said to him over and over, “Go away, Elmer, go far away, I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body: You will do some terrible thing.” And just as I feared, he killed my husband; With which I had nothing to do, before God Silent for thirty years in prison And the iron gates of Joliet Swung as the gray and silent trusties Carried me out in a coffin.

Elmer Karr

What but the love of God could have softened And made forgiving the people of Spoon River Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt And murdered him beside? Oh, loving hearts that took me in again When I returned from fourteen years in prison! Oh, helping hands that in the church received me And heard with tears my penitent confession, Who took the sacrament of bread and wine! Repent, ye living ones, and rest with Jesus.

Elizabeth Childers

Dust of my dust, And dust with my dust, O, child who died as you entered the world, Dead with my death! Not knowing Breath, though you tried so hard, With a heart that beat when you lived with me, And stopped when you left me for Life. It is well, my child. For you never traveled The long, long way that begins with school days, When little fingers blur under the tears That fall on the crooked letters. And the earliest wound, when a little mate Leaves you alone for another; And sickness, and the face of Fear by the bed; The death of a father or mother; Or shame for them, or poverty; The maiden sorrow of school days ended; And eyeless Nature that makes you drink From the cup of Love, though you know it’s poisoned; To whom would your flower-face have been lifted? Botanist, weakling? Cry of what blood to yours?— Pure or foul, for it makes no matter, It’s blood that calls to our blood. And then your children—oh, what might they be? And what your sorrow? Child! Child Death is better than Life.

Edith Conant

We stand about this place—we, the memories; And shade our eyes because we dread to read: “June 17th, 1884, aged 21 years and 3 days.” And all things are changed. And we—we, the memories, stand here for ourselves alone, For no eye marks us, or would know why we are here. Your husband is dead, your sister lives far away, Your father is bent with age; He has forgotten you, he scarcely leaves the house Any more. No one remembers your exquisite face, Your lyric voice! How you sang, even on the morning you were stricken, With piercing sweetness, with thrilling sorrow, Before the advent of the child which died with you. It is all forgotten, save by us, the memories, Who are forgotten by the world. All is changed, save the river and the hill— Even they are changed. Only the burning sun and the quiet stars are the same. And we—we, the memories, stand here in awe, Our eyes closed with the weariness of tears— In immeasurable weariness

Charles Webster

The pine woods on the hill, And the farmhouse miles away, Showed clear as though behind a lens Under a sky of peacock blue! But a blanket of cloud by afternoon Muffled the earth. And you walked the road And the clover field, where the only sound Was the cricket’s liquid tremolo. Then the sun went down between great drifts Of distant storms. For a rising wind Swept clean the sky and blew the flames Of the unprotected stars; And swayed the russet moon, Hanging between the rim of the hill And the twinkling boughs of the apple orchard. You walked the shore in thought Where the throats of the waves were like whip-poor-wills Singing beneath the water and crying To the wash of the wind in the cedar trees, Till you stood, too full for tears, by the cot, And looking up saw Jupiter, Tipping the spire of the giant pine, And looking down saw my vacant chair, Rocked by the wind on the lonely porch— Be brave, Beloved!

Father Malloy

You are over there, Father Malloy, Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave, Not here with us on the hill— Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins. You were so human, Father Malloy, Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us, Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality. You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand From the wastes about the pyramids And makes them real and Egypt real. You were a part of and related to a great past, And yet you were so close to many of us. You believed in the joy of life. You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh. You faced life as it is, And as it changes. Some of us almost came to you, Father Malloy, Seeing how your church had divined the heart, And provided for it, Through Peter the Flame, Peter the Rock.

Ami Green

Not “a youth with hoary head and haggard eye”, But an old man with a smooth skin And black hair! I had the face of a boy as long as I lived, And for years a soul that was stiff and bent, In a world which saw me just as a jest, To be hailed familiarly when it chose, And loaded up as a man when it chose, Being neither man nor boy. In truth it was soul as well as body Which never matured, and I say to you That the much-sought prize of eternal youth Is just arrested growth.

Calvin Campbell

Ye who are kicking against Fate, Tell me how it is that on this hill-side Running down to the river, Which fronts the sun and the south-wind, This plant draws from the air and soil Poison and becomes poison ivy? And this plant draws from the same air and soil Sweet elixirs and colors and becomes arbutus? And both flourish? You may blame Spoon River for what it is, But whom do you blame for the will in you That feeds itself and makes you dock-weed, Jimpson, dandelion or mullen And which can never use any soil or air So as to make you jessamine or wistaria?

Henry Layton

Whoever thou art who passest by Know that my father was gentle, And my mother was violent, While I was born the whole of such hostile halves, Not intermixed and fused, But each distinct, feebly soldered together. Some of you saw me as gentle, Some as violent, Some as both. But neither half of me wrought my ruin. It was the falling asunder of halves, Never a part of each other, That left me a lifeless soul.

Harlan Sewall

You never understood, O unknown one, Why it was I repaid Your devoted friendship and delicate ministrations First with diminished thanks, Afterward by gradually withdrawing my presence from you, So that I might not be compelled to thank you, And then with silence which followed upon Our final Separation. You had cured my diseased soul. But to cure it You saw my disease, you knew my secret, And that is why I fled from you. For though when our bodies rise from pain We kiss forever the watchful hands That gave us wormwood, while we shudder For thinking of the wormwood, A soul that’s cured is a different matter, For there we’d blot from memory The soft-toned words, the searching eyes, And stand forever oblivious, Not so much of the sorrow itself As of the hand that healed it.

Ippolit Konovaloff

I was a gun-smith in Odessa. One night the police broke in the room Where a group of us were reading Spencer. And seized our books and arrested us. But I escaped and came to New York And thence to Chicago, and then to Spoon River, Where I could study my Kant in peace And eke out a living repairing guns Look at my moulds! My architectonics One for a barrel, one for a hammer And others for other parts of a gun! Well, now suppose no gun-smith living Had anything else but duplicate moulds Of these I show you—well, all guns Would be just alike, with a hammer to hit The cap and a barrel to carry the shot All acting alike for themselves, and all Acting against each other alike. And there would be your world of guns! Which nothing could ever free from itself Except a Moulder with different moulds To mould the metal over.

Henry Phipps

I was the Sunday-school superintendent, The dummy president of the wagon works And the canning factory, Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique; My son the cashier of the bank, Wedded to Rhodes’ daughter, My week days spent in making money, My Sundays at church and in prayer. In everything a cog in the wheel of things-as-they-are: Of money, master and man, made white With the paint of the Christian creed. And then: The bank collapsed. I stood and hooked at the wrecked machine— The wheels with blow-holes stopped with putty and painted; The rotten bolts, the broken rods; And only the hopper for souls fit to be used again In a new devourer of life, When newspapers, judges and money-magicians Build over again. I was stripped to the bone, but I lay in the Rock of Ages, Seeing now through the game, no longer a dupe, And knowing “the upright shall dwell in the land But the years of the wicked shall be shortened.” Then suddenly, Dr. Meyers discovered A cancer in my liver. I was not, after all, the particular care of God Why, even thus standing on a peak Above the mists through which I had climbed, And ready for larger life in the world, Eternal forces Moved me on with a push.

Harry Wilmans

I was just turned twenty-one, And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent, Made a speech in Bindle’s Opera House. “The honor of the flag must be upheld,” he said, “Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs Or the greatest power in Europe.” And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he waved As he spoke. And I went to the war in spite of my father, And followed the flag till I saw it raised By our camp in a rice field near Manila, And all of us cheered and cheered it. But there were flies and poisonous things; And there was the deadly water, And the cruel heat, And the sickening, putrid food; And the smell of the trench just back of the tents Where the soldiers went to empty themselves; And there were the whores who followed us, full of syphilis; And beastly acts between ourselves or alone, With bullying, hatred, degradation among us, And days of loathing and nights of fear To the hour of the charge through the steaming swamp, Following the flag, Till I fell with a scream, shot through the guts. Now there’s a flag over me in Spoon River. A flag! A flag!

John Wasson

Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing, One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing, Lengthening out the farewell to me off to the war with the British, And then the long, hard years down to the day of Yorktown. And then my search for Rebecca, Finding her at last in Virginia, Two children dead in the meanwhile. We went by oxen to Tennessee, Thence after years to Illinois, At last to Spoon River. We cut the buffalo grass, We felled the forests, We built the school houses, built the bridges, Leveled the roads and tilled the fields Alone with poverty, scourges, death— If Harry Wilmans who fought the Filipinos Is to have a flag on his grave Take it from mine.

Many Soldiers

The idea danced before us as a flag; The sound of martial music; The thrill of carrying a gun; Advancement in the world on coming home; A glint of glory, wrath for foes; A dream of duty to country or to God. But these were things in ourselves, shining before us, They were not the power behind us, Which was the Almighty hand of Life, Like fire at earth’s center making mountains, Or pent up waters that cut them through. Do you remember the iron band The blacksmith, Shack Dye, welded Around the oak on Bennet’s lawn, From which to swing a hammock, That daughter Janet might repose in, reading On summer afternoons? And that the growing tree at last Sundered the iron band? But not a cell in all the tree Knew aught save that it thrilled with life, Nor cared because the hammock fell In the dust with Milton’s Poems.

Godwin James

Harry Wilmans! You who fell in a swamp Near Manila, following the flag You were not wounded by the greatness of a dream, Or destroyed by ineffectual work, Or driven to madness by Satanic snags; You were not torn by aching nerves, Nor did you carry great wounds to your old age. You did not starve, for the government fed you. You did not suffer yet cry “forward” To an army which you led Against a foe with mocking smiles, Sharper than bayonets. You were not smitten down By invisible bombs. You were not rejected By those for whom you were defeated. You did not eat the savorless bread Which a poor alchemy had made from ideals. You went to Manila, Harry Wilmans, While I enlisted in the bedraggled army Of bright-eyed, divine youths, Who surged forward, who were driven back and fell Sick, broken, crying, shorn of faith, Following the flag of the Kingdom of Heaven. You and I, Harry Wilmans, have fallen In our several ways, not knowing Good from bad, defeat from victory, Nor what face it is that smiles Behind the demoniac mask.

Lyman King

You may think, passer-by, that Fate Is a pit-fall outside of yourself, Around which you may walk by the use of foresight And wisdom. Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men, As one who in God-like fashion bends over an anthill, Seeing how their difficulties could be avoided. But pass on into life: In time you shall see Fate approach you In the shape of your own image in the mirror; Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth, And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest, And you shall know that guest And read the authentic message of his eyes.

Caroline Branson

With our hearts like drifting suns, had we but walked, As often before, the April fields till star-light Silkened over with viewless gauze the darkness Under the cliff, our trysting place in the wood, Where the brook turns! Had we but passed from wooing Like notes of music that run together, into winning, In the inspired improvisation of love! But to put back of us as a canticle ended The rapt enchantment of the flesh, In which our souls swooned, down, down, Where time was not, nor space, nor ourselves— Annihilated in love! To leave these behind for a room with lamps: And to stand with our Secret mocking itself, And hiding itself amid flowers and mandolins, Stared at by all between salad and coffee. And to see him tremble, and feel myself Prescient, as one who signs a bond— Not flaming with gifts and pledges heaped With rosy hands over his brow. And then, O night! deliberate! unlovely! With all of our wooing blotted out by the winning, In a chosen room in an hour that was known to all! Next day he sat so listless, almost cold So strangely changed, wondering why I wept, Till a kind of sick despair and voluptuous madness Seized us to make the pact of death.

A stalk of the earth-sphere, Frail as star-light; Waiting to be drawn once again Into creation’s stream. But next time to be given birth Gazed at by Raphael and St. Francis Sometimes as they pass. For I am their little brother, To be known clearly face to face Through a cycle of birth hereafter run. You may know the seed and the soil; You may feel the cold rain fall, But only the earth-sphere, only heaven Knows the secret of the seed In the nuptial chamber under the soil. Throw me into the stream again, Give me another trial— Save me, Shelley!

Anne Rutledge

Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music; “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation Shining with justice and truth. I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation. Bloom forever, O Republic, From the dust of my bosom!

Hamlet Micure