Part 9

Eugenia Todd

Have any of you, passers-by, Had an old tooth that was an unceasing discomfort? Or a pain in the side that never quite left you? Or a malignant growth that grew with time? So that even in profoundest slumber There was shadowy consciousness or the phantom of thought Of the tooth, the side, the growth? Even so thwarted love, or defeated ambition, Or a blunder in life which mixed your life Hopelessly to the end, Will like a tooth, or a pain in the side, Float through your dreams in the final sleep Till perfect freedom from the earth-sphere Comes to you as one who wakes Healed and glad in the morning!

Yee Bow

They got me into the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, The minister’s son, caved my ribs into my lungs, With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, And no children shall worship at my grave.

Washington McNeely

Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion—house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors— Resting under my cedar tree at evening. The years went on. I sent the girls to Europe; I dowered them when married. I gave the boys money to start in business. They were strong children, promising as apples Before the bitten places show. But John fled the country in disgrace. Jenny died in child-birth— I sat under my cedar tree. Harry killed himself after a debauch, Susan was divorced— I sat under my cedar tree. Paul was invalided from over study, Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man— I sat under my cedar tree. All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life— I sat under my cedar tree. My mate, the mother of them, was taken— I sat under my cedar tree, Till ninety years were tolled. O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep.

Paul McNeely

Dear Jane! dear winsome Jane! How you stole in the room (where I lay so ill) In your nurse’s cap and linen cuffs, And took my hand and said with a smile: “You are not so ill—you’ll soon be well.” And how the liquid thought of your eyes Sank in my eyes like dew that slips Into the heart of a flower. Dear Jane! the whole McNeely fortune Could not have bought your care of me, By day and night, and night and day; Nor paid for your smile, nor the warmth of your soul, In your little hands laid on my brow. Jane, till the flame of life went out In the dark above the disk of night I longed and hoped to be well again To pillow my head on your little breasts, And hold you fast in a clasp of love— Did my father provide for you when he died, Jane, dear Jane?

Mary McNeely

Passer-by, To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one. When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul Then you have lost your soul. It is written: “l have a friend, But my sorrow has no friend.” Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my father, Trying to get myself back, And to turn my sorrow into a supremer self. But there was my father with his sorrows, Sitting under the cedar tree, A picture that sank into my heart at last Bringing infinite repose. Oh, ye souls who have made life Fragrant and white as tube roses From earth’s dark soil, Eternal peace!

Daniel M’Cumber

When I went to the city, Mary McNeely, I meant to return for you, yes I did. But Laura, my landlady’s daughter, Stole into my life somehow, and won me away. Then after some years whom should I meet But Georgine Miner from Niles—a sprout Of the free love, Fourierist gardens that flourished Before the war all over Ohio. Her dilettante lover had tired of her, And she turned to me for strength and solace. She was some kind of a crying thing One takes in one’s arms, and all at once It slimes your face with its running nose, And voids its essence all over you; Then bites your hand and springs away. And there you stand bleeding and smelling to heaven Why, Mary McNeely, I was not worthy To kiss the hem of your robe!

Georgine Sand Miner

A stepmother drove me from home, embittering me. A squaw-man, a flaneur and dilettante took my virtue. For years I was his mistress—no one knew. I learned from him the parasite cunning With which I moved with the bluffs, like a flea on a dog. All the time I was nothing but “very private,” with different men. Then Daniel, the radical, had me for years. His sister called me his mistress; And Daniel wrote me: “Shameful word, soiling our beautiful love!” But my anger coiled, preparing its fangs. My Lesbian friend next took a hand. She hated Daniel’s sister. And Daniel despised her midget husband. And she saw a chance for a poisonous thrust: I must complain to the wife of Daniel’s pursuit! But before I did that I begged him to fly to London with me. “Why not stay in the city just as we have?” he asked. Then I turned submarine and revenged his repulse In the arms of my dilettante friend. Then up to the surface, Bearing the letter that Daniel wrote me To prove my honor was all intact, showing it to his wife, My Lesbian friend and everyone. If Daniel had only shot me dead! Instead of stripping me naked of lies A harlot in body and soul.

Thomas Rhodes

Very well, you liberals, And navigators into realms intellectual, You sailors through heights imaginative, Blown about by erratic currents, tumbling into air pockets, You Margaret Fuller Slacks, Petits, And Tennessee Claflin Shopes— You found with all your boasted wisdom How hard at the last it is To keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms. While we, seekers of earth’s treasures Getters and hoarders of gold, Are self-contained, compact, harmonized, Even to the end.

Ida Chicken

After I had attended lectures At our Chautauqua, and studied French For twenty years, committing the grammar Almost by heart, I thought I’d take a trip to Paris To give my culture a final polish. So I went to Peoria for a passport— (Thomas Rhodes was on the train that morning.) And there the clerk of the district Court Made me swear to support and defend The constitution—yes, even me— Who couldn’t defend or support it at all! And what do you think? That very morning The Federal Judge, in the very next room To the room where I took the oath, Decided the constitution Exempted Rhodes from paying taxes For the water works of Spoon River!

Penniwit, the Artist

I lost my patronage in Spoon River From trying to put my mind in the camera To catch the soul of the person. The very best picture I ever took Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law. He sat upright and had me pause Till he got his cross-eye straight. Then when he was ready he said “all right.” And I yelled “overruled” and his eye turned up. And I caught him just as he used to look When saying “I except.”

Jim Brown

While I was handling Dom Pedro I got at the thing that divides the race between men who are For singing “Turkey in the straw” or “There is a fountain filled with blood”— (Like Rile Potter used to sing it over at Concord). For cards, or for Rev. Peet’s lecture on the holy land; For skipping the light fantastic, or passing the plate; For Pinafore, or a Sunday school cantata; For men, or for money; For the people or against them. This was it: Rev. Peet and the Social Purity Club, Headed by Ben Pantier’s wife, Went to the Village trustees, And asked them to make me take Dom Pedro From the barn of Wash McNeely, there at the edge of town, To a barn outside of the corporation, On the ground that it corrupted public morals. Well, Ben Pantier and Fiddler Jones saved the day— They thought it a slam on colts.

Robert Davidson

I grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men. If I saw a soul that was strong I wounded its pride and devoured its strength. The shelters of friendship knew my cunning For where I could steal a friend I did so. And wherever I could enlarge my power By undermining ambition, I did so, Thus to make smooth my own. And to triumph over other souls, Just to assert and prove my superior strength, Was with me a delight, The keen exhilaration of soul gymnastics. Devouring souls, I should have lived forever. But their undigested remains bred in me a deadly nephritis, With fear, restlessness, sinking spirits, Hatred, suspicion, vision disturbed. I collapsed at last with a shriek. Remember the acorn; It does not devour other acorns.

Elsa Wertman

I was a peasant girl from Germany, Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong. And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene’s. On a summer’s day when she was away He stole into the kitchen and took me Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat, I turning my head. Then neither of us Seemed to know what happened. And I cried for what would become of me. And cried and cried as my secret began to show. One day Mrs. Greene said she understood, And would make no trouble for me, And, being childless, would adopt it. (He had given her a farm to be still.) So she hid in the house and sent out rumors, As if it were going to happen to her. And all went well and the child was born— They were so kind to me. Later I married Gus Wertman, and years passed. But—at political rallies when sitters-by thought I was crying At the eloquence of Hamilton Greene— That was not it. No! I wanted to say: That’s my son! That’s my son.

Hamilton Greene

I was the only child of Frances Harris of Virginia And Thomas Greene of Kentucky, Of valiant and honorable blood both. To them I owe all that I became, Judge, member of Congress, leader in the State. From my mother I inherited Vivacity, fancy, language; From my father will, judgment, logic. All honor to them For what service I was to the people!