Spoon River Anthology

Part 1

Spoon River Anthology

by Edgar Lee Masters

Contents

Altman, Herman Armstrong, Hannah Arnett, Harold Arnett, Justice Atheist, The Village Atherton, Lucius

Ballard, John Barker, Amanda Barrett, Pauline Bartlett, Ezra Bateson, Marie Beatty, Tom Beethoven, Isaiah Bennett, Hon. Henry Bindle, Nicholas Bliss, Mrs. Charles Blood, A. D. Bloyd, Wendell P. Bone, Richard Branson, Caroline Brown, Jim Brown, Sarah Browning, Elijah Burke, Robert Southey Burleson, John Horace Butler, Roy

Cabanis, Flossie Cabanis, John Calhoun, Granville Calhoun, Henry C. Campbell, Calvin Carlisle, Jeremy Carman, Eugene Cheney, Columbus Chicken, Ida Childers, Elizabeth Church, John M. Churchill, Alfonso Clapp, Homer Clark, Nellie Clute, Aner Compton, Seth Conant, Edith Culbertson, E. C.

Davidson, Robert Dement, Silas Dippold the Optician Dixon, Joseph Dobyns, Batterton Drummer, Frank Drummer, Hare Dunlap, Enoch Dye, Shack

Ehrenhardt, Imanuel Epilogue

Fallas, State’s Attorney Fawcett, Clarence Ferguson, Wallace Findlay, Anthony Fluke, Willard Foote, Searcy Ford, Webster Fraser, Benjamin Fraser, Daisy French, Charlie Frickey, Ida

Garber, James Gardner, Samuel Garrick, Amelia Godbey, Jacob Goldman, Le Roy Goode, William Goodhue, Harry Carey Goodpasture, Jacob Graham, Magrady Gray, George Green, Ami Greene, Hamilton Griffy, The Cooper Gustine, Dorcas

Hainsfeather, Barney Hamblin, Carl Hately, Constance Hatfield, Aaron Hawkins, Elliott Hawley, Jeduthan Henry, Chase Herndon, William H. Heston, Roger Higbie, Archibald Hill, Doc Hill, The Hoheimer, Knowlt Holden, Barry Hookey, Sam Houghton, Jonathan Howard, Jefferson Hueffer, Cassius Hummel, Oscar Humphrey, Lydia Hurley, Scholfield Hutchins, Lambert Hyde, Ernest

Iseman, Dr. Siegfried

Jack, Blind James, Godwin Joe, Plymouth Rock Johnson, Voltaire Jones, Fiddler Jones, Franklin Jones, Indignation Jones, Minerva Jones, William Judge, The Circuit

Karr, Elmer Keene, Jonas Kessler, Bert Kessler, Mrs. Killion, Captain Orlando Kincaid, Russell King, Lyman Keene, Kinsey Knapp, Nancy Konovaloff, Ippolit Kritt, Dow

Layton, Henry Lively, Judge Selah

M’Cumber, Daniel McDowell, Rutherford McFarlane, Widow McGee, Fletcher McGee, Ollie M’Grew, Jennie M’Grew, Mickey McGuire, Jack McNeely, Mary McNeely, Paul McNeely, Washington Malloy, Father Marsh, Zilpha Marshal, The Town Marshall, Herbert Mason, Serepta Matheny, Faith Matlock, Davis Matlock, Lucinda Melveny, Abel Merritt, Mrs. Merritt, Tom Metcalf, Willie Meyers, Doctor Meyers, Mrs. Micure, Hamlet Miles, J. Milton Miller, Julia Miner, Georgine Sand Moir, Alfred

Newcomer, Professor Night-Watch, Andy The Nutter, Isa

Osborne, Mabel Otis, John Hancock

Pantier, Benjamin Pantier, Mrs. Benjamin Pantier, Reuben Peet, Rev. Abner Pennington, Willie Penniwit, the Artist Petit, the Poet Phipps, Henry Poague, Peleg Pollard, Edmund Potter, Cooney Puckett, Lydia Purkapile, Mrs. Purkapile, Roscoe Putt, Hod

Reece, Mrs. George Rhodes, Ralph Rhodes, Thomas Richter, Gustav Robbins, Hortense Roberts, Rosie Ross, Thomas, Jr. Russian Sonia Rutledge, Anne

Sayre, Johnnie Scates, Hiram Schirding, Albert Schmidt, Felix Schrœder The Fisherman Scott, Julian Sersmith the Dentist Sewall, Harlan Sharp, Percival Shaw, “Ace” Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shope, Tennessee Claflin Sibley, Amos Sibley, Mrs. Siever, Conrad Simmons, Walter Sissman, Dillard Slack, Margaret Fuller Smith, Louise Soldiers, Many Somers, Jonathan Swift Somers, Judge Sparks, Emily Spears, Lois Spooniad, The Standard, W. Lloyd Garrison Stewart, Lillian Stoddard, Judson

Tanner, Robert Fulton Taylor, Deacon Theodore, The Poet Thornton, English Throckmorton, Alexander Todd, Eugenia Tompkins, Josiah Trainor, the Druggist Trevelyan, Thomas Trimble, George Tripp, Henry Tubbs, Hildrup Turner, Francis Tutt, Oaks

Unknown, The

Wasson, John Wasson, Rebecca Webster, Charles Weirauch, Adam Weldy, “Butch” Wertman, Elsa Whedon, Editor Whitney, Harmon Wiley, Rev. Lemuel Will, Arlo William and Emily Williams, Dora Williams, Mrs. Wilmans, Harry Witt, Zenas

Yee Bow

Zoll, Perry

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.

Part 2

One passed 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 space 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 others 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, Aha! the bait that you crave is in view: A woman with money you want to marry, Prestige, place, or power in the world. But there’s work to do and things to conquer— Oh, yes! the wires that screen the bait. At last you get in—but you hear a step: The ogre, Life, comes into the room, (He was waiting and heard the clang of the spring) To watch you nibble the wondrous cheese, And stare with his burning eyes at you, And scowl and laugh, and mock and curse you, Running up and down in the trap, Until your misery bores him.

Cassius 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.

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