Spoon River Anthology | Page 5

story.
I pass the effect of my father
and mother;
The milliner's daughter made me trouble
And out I
went in the world,
Where I passed through every peril known
Of
wine and women and joy of life.
One night, in a room in the Rue de
Rivoli,
I was drinking wine with a black-eyed cocotte,
And the
tears swam into my eyes.
She though they were amorous tears and
smiled
For thought of her conquest over me.
But my soul was three
thousand miles away,
In the days when you taught me in Spoon River.

And just because you no more could love me,
Nor pray for me, nor
write me letters,
The eternal silence of you spoke instead.
And the
Black-eyed cocotte took the tears for hers,
As well as the deceiving
kisses I gave her.
Somehow, from that hour, I had a new vision

Dear Emily Sparks!
Emily Sparks
Where is my boy, my boy

In what far part of the world?
The boy I
loved best of all in the school?--
I, the teacher, the old maid, the
virgin heart,
Who made them all my children.
Did I know my boy

aright,
Thinking of him as a spirit aflame,
Active, ever aspiring?

Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed
In many a watchful hour
at night,
Do you remember the letter I wrote you
Of the beautiful
love of Christ?
And whether you ever took it or not,
My, boy,
wherever you are,
Work for your soul's sake,
That all the clay of
you, all of the dross of you,
May yield to the fire of you,
Till the
fire is nothing but light!...
Nothing but light!
Trainor, the Druggist
Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist,
What will
result from compounding
Fluids or solids.
And who can tell
How
men and women will interact
On each other, or what children will
result?
There were Benjamin Pantier and his wife,
Good in
themselves, but evil toward each other;
He oxygen, she hydrogen,

Their son, a devastating fire.
I Trainor, the druggist, a miser of
chemicals,
Killed while making an experiment,
Lived unwedded.
Daisy Fraser
Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon
Giving to the public treasury
any of the money he received
For supporting candidates for office?

Or for writing up the canning factory
To get people to invest?
Or
for suppressing the facts about the bank,
When it was rotten and
ready to break?
Did you ever hear of the Circuit Judge
Helping
anyone except the "Q" railroad,
Or the bankers? Or did Rev. Peet or
Rev. Sibley
Give any part of their salary, earned by keeping still,

Or speaking out as the leaders wished them to do,
To the building of
the water works?
But I Daisy Fraser who always passed
Along the
street through rows of nods and smiles,

And caughs and words such
as "there she goes."
Never was taken before Justice Arnett
Without
contributing ten dollars and costs
To the school fund of Spoon River!
Benjamin Fraser

THEIR spirits beat upon mine
Like the wings of a thousand
butterflies.
I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating.
I closed
my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes
Fringed their cheeks from
downcast eyes,
And when they turned their heads;
And when their
garments clung to them,
Or fell from them, in exquisite draperies.

Their spirits watched my ecstasy
With wide looks of starry unconcern.

Their spirits looked upon my torture;
They drank it as it were the
water of life;
With reddened cheeks, brightened eyes,
The rising
flame of my soul made their spirits gilt,
Like the wings of a butterfly
drifting suddenly into sunlight. And they cried to me for life, life, life.

But in taking life for myself,
In seizing and crushing their souls,

As a child crushes grapes and drinks
From its palms the purple juice,

I came to this wingless void,
Where neither red, nor gold, nor wine,

Nor the rhythm of life are known.
Minerva Jones
I AM Minerva, the village poetess,
Hooted at, jeered at by the
Yahoos of the street
For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,

And all the more when "Butch" Weldy
Captured me after a brutal
hunt.
He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;
And I sank into
death, growing numb from the feet up,
Like one stepping deeper and
deeper into a stream of ice.
Will some one go to the village
newspaper,
And gather into a book the verses I wrote?--
I thirsted
so for love
I hungered so for life!
"Indignation" Jones
You would not believe, would you
That I came from good Welsh
stock?
That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?
And of
more direct lineage than the
New Englanders And Virginians of
Spoon River?
You would not believe that I had been to school
And
read some books.
You saw me only as a run-down man

With
matted hair and beard
And ragged clothes.
Sometimes a man's life

turns into a cancer
From being bruised and continually bruised,

And swells into a purplish mass
Like growths on stalks of corn.

Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life
Into which I walked,
thinking it was a meadow,
With a slattern for a wife, and poor
Minerva, my daughter,
Whom you tormented and drove to death.

So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days
Of my life.
No more
you hear my