Spoon River Anthology | Page 8

eighty years, and I cried:?"Oh, son who died in a cause unjust!?In the strife of Freedom slain!"?And I crept here under the grass.?And now from the battlements of time, behold:?Thrice thirty million souls being bound together?In the love of larger truth,?Rapt in the expectation of the birth?Of a new Beauty,?Sprung from Brotherhood and Wisdom.?I with eyes of spirit see the Transfiguration?Before you see it.?But ye infinite brood of golden eagles nesting ever higher, Wheeling ever higher, the sun-- light wooing?Of lofty places of Thought,?Forgive the blindness of the departed owl.
Dorcas Gustine
I WAS not beloved of the villagers,?But all because I spoke my mind,?And met those who transgressed against me?With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing?Nor secret griefs nor grudges.?That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised,?Who hid the wolf under his cloak,?Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly.?It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth?And fight him openly, even in the street,?Amid dust and howls of pain.?The tongue may be an unruly member--?But silence poisons the soul.?Berate me who will--I am content.
Nicholas Bindle
Were you not ashamed, fellow citizens,?When my estate was probated and everyone knew?How small a fortune I left?--?You who hounded me in life,?To give, give, give to the churches, to the poor,?To the village!--me who had already given much.?And think you not I did not know?That the pipe-organ, which I gave to the church,?Played its christening songs when Deacon Rhodes,?Who broke and all but ruined me,?Worshipped for the first time after his acquittal?
Harold Arnett
I LEANED against the mantel, sick, sick,?Thinking of my failure, looking into the abysm,?Weak from the noon-day heat.?A church bell sounded mournfully far away,?I heard the cry of a baby,?And the coughing of John Yarnell,?Bed-ridden, feverish, feverish, dying,?Then the violent voice of my wife:?"Watch out, the potatoes are burning!"?I smelled them . . . then there was irresistible disgust.?I pulled the trigger . . . blackness . . . light . . .?Unspeakable regret . . . fumbling for the world again.?Too late! Thus I came here,?With lungs for breathing . . . one cannot breathe here with lungs, Though one must breathe?Of what use is it To rid one's self of the world,?When no soul may ever escape the eternal destiny of life?
Margaret Fuller Slack
I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot?But for an untoward fate.?For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit,?Chin resting on hand, and deep--set eyes--?Gray, too, and far-searching.?But there was the old, old problem:?Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity??Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me,?Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel,?And I married him, giving birth to eight children,?And had no time to write.?It was all over with me, anyway,?When I ran the needle in my hand?While washing the baby's things,?And died from lock--jaw, an ironical death.?Hear me, ambitious souls,?Sex is the curse of life.
George Trimble
Do you remember when I stood on the steps?Of the Court House and talked free-silver,?And the single-tax of Henry George??Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader?Lost the first battle, I began to talk prohibition,?And became active in the church??That was due to my wife,?Who pictured to me my destruction?If I did not prove my morality to the people.?Well, she ruined me:?For the radicals grew suspicious of me,?And the conservatives were never sure of me--?And here I lie, unwept of all.
"Ace" Shaw
I NEVER saw any difference?Between playing cards for money?And selling real estate,?Practicing law, banking, or anything else.?For everything is chance.?Nevertheless?Seest thou a man diligent in business??He shall stand before Kings!
Willard Fluke
MY wife lost her health,?And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds.?Then that woman, whom the men?Styled Cleopatra, came along.?And we-- we married ones?All broke our vows, myself among the rest.?Years passed and one by one?Death claimed them all in some hideous form?And I was borne along by dreams?Of God's particular grace for me,?And I began to write, write, write, reams on reams?Of the second coming of Christ.?Then Christ came to me and said,?"Go into the church and stand before the congregation?And confess your sin."?But just as I stood up and began to speak?I saw my little girl, who was sitting in the front seat--?My little girl who was born blind!?After that, all is blackness.
Aner Clute
OVER and over they used to ask me,?While buying the wine or the beer,?In Peoria first, and later in Chicago,?Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived?How I happened to lead the life,?And what was the start of it.?Well, I told them a silk dress,?And a promise of marriage from a rich man--?(It was Lucius Atherton).?But that was not really it at all.?Suppose a boy steals an apple?From the tray at the grocery store,?And they all begin to call him a thief,?The editor, minister, judge, and all the people--?"A thief," "a thief," "a thief," wherever he goes?And he can't get work,