Toward the Gulf

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Title: Toward the Gulf
Author: Edgar Lee Masters
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOWARD
THE GULF ***
Produced by Dave Maddock, Charles Franks
and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
TOWARD THE GULF
BY
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
CONTENTS
TOWARD THE GULF
THE LAKE BOATS
CITIES OF THE
PLAIN
EXCLUDED MIDDLE
SAMUEL BUTLER, ET AL

JOHNNY APPLESEED
THE LOOM
DIALOGUE AT
PERKO'S
SIR GALAHAD
ST. DESERET
HEAVEN IS BUT
THE HOUR
VICTOR RAFOLSKI ON ART
THE
LANDSCAPE
TO-MORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY
SWEET
CLOVER
SOMETHING BEYOND THE HILL
FRONT THE
AGES WITH A SMILE
POOR PIERROT
MIRAGE OF THE
DESERT
DAHLIAS
THE GRAND RIVER MARSHES

DELILAH
THE WORLD-SAVER
RECESSIONAL
THE
AWAKENING
IN THE GARDEN AT THE DAWN HOUR

FRANCE
BERTRAND AND GOURGAUD TALK OVER OLD
TIMES
DRAW THE SWORD, O REPUBLIC
DEAR OLD
DICK
THE ROOM OF MIRRORS
THE LETTER

CANTICLE OF THE RACE
BLACK EAGLE RETURNS TO
ST. JOE
MY LIGHT WITH YOURS
THE BLIND
"I PAY
MY DEBT FOR LAFAYETTE AND ROCHAMBEAU"


CHRISTMAS AT INDIAN POINT
WIDOW LA RUE
DR.
SCUDDER'S CLINICAL LECTURE
FRIAR YVES
THE
EIGHTH CRUSADE
THE BISHOP'S DREAM OF THE HOLY
SEPULCHRE
NEANDERTHAL
THE END OF THE SEARCH

BOTANICAL GARDENS

TO WILLIAM MARION REEDY
It would have been fitting had I dedicated Spoon River Anthology to
you. Considerations of an intimate nature, not to mention a literary
encouragement which was before yours, crowded you from the page.
Yet you know that it was you who pressed upon my attention in June,
1909, the Greek Anthology. It was from contemplation of its epitaphs
that my hand unconsciously strayed to the sketches of "Hod Putt,"
"Serepta The Scold" ("Serepta Mason" in the book), "Amanda Barker"
("Amanda" in the book), "Ollie McGee" and "The Unknown," the first
written and the first printed sketches of The Spoon River Anthology.
The
Mirror of May 29th, 1914, is their record.
I take one of the epigrams of Meleager with its sad revealment and
touch of irony and turn it from its prose form to a verse form, making
verses according to the breath pauses:
"The holy night and thou, O Lamp, we took as witness of our vows;
and before thee we swore, he that would love me always and I that I
would never leave him. We swore, and thou wert witness of our double
promise. But now he says that our vows were written on the running
waters. And thou, O Lamp, thou seest him in the arms of another."
In verse this epigram is as follows:
The holy night and thou,
O Lamp,
We took as witness of our vows;

And before thee we swore,
He that would love me always
And I
that I would never leave him.
We swore,
And thou wert witness of
our double promise.
But now he says that our vows were written on
the running waters. And thou, O Lamp,
Thou seest him in the arms of
another.
It will be observed that iambic feet prevail in this translation. They
merely become noticeable and imperative when arranged in verses. But
so it is, even in the briefest and starkest rendering of these epigrams
from the Greek the humanism and dignity of the original transfer
themselves, making something, if less than verse, yet more than prose;

as Byron said of Sheridan's speeches, neither poetry nor oratory, but
better than either. It was no difficult matter to pass from Chase Henry:
"In life I was the town drunkard.
When I died the priest denied me
burial
In holy ground, etc."
to the use of standard measures, or rhythmical arrangements of iambics
or what not, and so to make a book, which for the first third required a
practiced voice or eye to yield the semblance of verse; and for the last
two-thirds, or nearly so, accommodated itself to the less sensitive
conception of the average reader. The prosody was allowed to take care
of itself under the emotional requirements and inspiration of the
moment. But there is nothing new in English literature