Spoon River Anthology | Page 4

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,
Of the cross-current in life

Which Bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame.
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.
Amanda Barker
HENRY got me with child,
Knowing that I could not bring forth life

Without losing my own.
In my youth therefore I entered the portals
of dust.
Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived
That
Henry loved me with a husband's love
But I proclaim from the dust

That he slew me to gratify his hatred.
Chase Henry

IN life I was the town drunkard;
When I died the priest denied me
burial
In holy ground.
The which redounded to my good fortune.

For the Protestants bought this lot,
And buried my body here,
Close
to the grave of the banker Nicholas,
And of his wife Priscilla.
Take
note, ye prudent and pious souls,
Of the cross--currents in life

Which bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame
Judge Somers
How does it happen, tell me,
That I who was most erudite of lawyers,

Who knew Blackstone and Coke
Almost by heart, who made the
greatest speech
The court-house ever heard, and wrote
A brief that
won the praise of Justice Breese
How does it happen, tell me,
That I
lie here unmarked, forgotten,
While Chase Henry, the town drunkard,

Has a marble block, topped by an urn
Wherein Nature, in a mood
ironical,
Has sown a flowering weed?
Benjamin Pantier
TOGETHER in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law, And
Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend.
Down the gray
road, friends, children, men and women,
Passing one by one out of
life, left me till I was alone
With Nig for partner, bed-fellow;
comrade in drink.
In the morning of life I knew aspiration and saw
glory,
The she, who survives me, snared my soul
With a snare
which bled me to death,
Till I, once strong of will, lay broken,
indifferent,
Living with Nig in a room back of a dingy office.
Under
my Jaw-bone is snuggled the bony nose of Nig
Our story is lost in
silence. Go by, Mad world!
Mrs. Benjamin Pantier
I know that he told that I snared his soul
With a snare which bled him
to death.
And all the men loved him,
And most of the women pitied
him.
But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes, And

loathe the smell of whiskey and onions,
And the rhythm of
Wordsworth's "Ode" runs in your ears,
While he goes about from
morning till night
Repeating bits of that common thing;
"Oh, why
should the spirit of mortal be proud?"
And then, suppose;
You are a
woman well endowed,
And the only man with whom the law and
morality
Permit you to have the marital relation
Is the very man that
fills you with disgust
Every time you think of it while you think of it

Every time you see him?
That's why I drove him away from home

To live with his dog in a dingy room
Back of his office.
Reuben Pantier
WELL, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted,
Your love was
not all in vain.
I owe whatever I was in life
To your hope that
would not give me up,
To your love that saw me still as good.
Dear
Emily Sparks, let me tell you the