Spoon River Anthology

by Edgar Lee Masters

  “She was the sweetest woman,” “He was a consistent Christian.”

  And I chiseled for them whatever they wished,

  All in ignorance of its 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 was abroad.

  Out of the chimney of the court-house

  A grey-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 “W
e’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 sud
den 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;