Epilogue (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Epilogue
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1 of 33 poems added to the 1916 edition]

[The graveyard of Spoon River. Two voices are heard behind a screen decorated with diabolical and angelic figures in various allegorical relations. A faint light shows dimly through the screen as if it were woven of leaves, branches and shadows.]

First Voice:—A game of checkers?
Second Voice:—Well, I don’t mind.
First Voice:—I move the Will.
Second Voice:—You’re playing it blind.
First Voice:—Then here’s the Soul.	5
Second Voice:—Checked by the Will.
First Voice:—Eternal Good!
Second Voice:—And Eternal Ill.
First Voice:—I haste for the King row.
Second Voice:—Save your breath.	10
First Voice:—I was moving Life.
Second Voice:—You’re checked by Death.
First Voice:—Very good, here’s Moses.
Second Voice:—And here’s the Jew.
First Voice:—My next move is Jesus.	15
Second Voice:—St. Paul for you!
First Voice:—Yes, but St. Peter—
Second Voice:—You might have foreseen—
First Voice:—You’re in the King row—
Second Voice:—With Constantine!	20
First Voice:—I’ll go back to Athens.
Second Voice:—Well, here’s the Persian.
First Voice:—All right, the Bible.
Second Voice:—Pray now, what version?
First Voice:—I take up Buddha.	25
Second Voice:—It never will work.
First Voice:—From the corner Mahomet.
Second Voice:—I move the Turk.
First Voice:—The game is tangled; where are we now?
Second Voice:—You’re dreaming worlds. I’m in the King row.	30
Move as you will, if I can’t wreck you
I’ll thwart you, harry you, rout you, check you.
First Voice:—I’m tired. I’ll send for my Son to play.
I think he can beat you finally—
Second Voice:—Eh?	35
First Voice:—I must preside at the stars’ convention.
Second Voice:—Very well, my lord, but I beg to mention
I’ll give this game my direct attention.
First Voice:—A game indeed! But Truth is my quest.
Second Voice:—Beaten, you walk away with a jest.	40
I strike the table, I scatter the checkers. [A rattle of a falling table and checkers flying over a floor.]
Aha! You armies and iron deckers,
Races and states in a cataclysm—
Now for a day of atheism! [The screen vanishes and Beelzebub steps forward carrying a trumpet, which he blows faintly. Immediately Loki and Yogarindra start up from the shadows of night.]
Beelzebub:—Good evening, Loki!	45
Loki:—The same to you!
Beelzebub:—And Yogarindra!
Yogarindra:—My greetings, too.
Loki:—Whence came you, comrade?
Beelzebub:—From yonder screen.	50
Yogarindra:—And what were you doing?
Beelzebub:—Stirring His spleen.
Loki:—How did you do it?
Beelzebub:—I made it rough
In a game of checkers.	55
Loki:—Good enough!
Yogarindra:—I thought I heard the sounds of a battle.
Beelzebub:—No doubt! I made the checkers rattle,
Turning the table over and strewing
The bits of wood like an army pursuing.	60
Yogarindra:—I have a game! Let us make a man.
Loki:—My net is waiting him, if you can.
Yogarindra:—And here’s my mirror to fool him with—
Beelzebub:—Mystery, falsehood, creed and myth.
Loki:—But no one can mold him, friend, but you.	65
Beelzebub:—Then to the sport without more ado.
Yogarindra:—Hurry the work ere it grow to day.
Beelzebub:—I set me to it. Where is the clay? [He scrapes the earth with his hands and begins to model.]
Beelzebub:—Out of the dust,
Out of the slime,	70
A little rust,
And a little lime.
Muscle and gristle,
Mucin, stone
Brayed with a pestle,	75
Fat and bone.
Out of the marshes,
Out of the vaults,
Matter crushes
Gas and salts.	80
What is this you call a mind,
Flitting, drifting, pale and blind,
Soul of the swamp that rides the wind?
Jack-o’-lantern, here you are!
Dream of heaven, pine for a star,	85
Chase your brothers to and fro,
Back to the swamp at last you’ll go.
Hilloo! Hilloo!
The Valley:—Hilloo! Hilloo! [Beelzebub in scraping up the earth turns out a skull.]
Beelzebub:—Old one, old one.	90
Now ere I break you,
Crush you and make you
Clay for my use,
Let me observe you:
You were a bold one	95
Flat at the dome of you,
Heavy the base of you,
False to the home of you,
Strong was the face of you,
Strange to all fears.	100
Yet did the hair of you
Hide what you were.
Now to re-nerve you— [He crushes the skull between his hands and mixes it with the clay.]
Now you are dust,
Limestone and rust.	105
I mold and I stir
And make you again.
The Valley:—Again? Again? [In the same manner Beelzebub has fashioned several figures, standing them against the trees.]
Loki:—Now for the breath of life. As I remember
You have done right to mold your creatures first,	110
And stand them up.
Beelzebub:—From gravitation
I make the will.
Yogarindra:—Out of sensation
Comes his ill.	115
Out of my mirror
Springs his error.
Who was so cruel
To make him the slave
Of me the sorceress, you the knave,	120
And you the plotter to catch his thought,
Whatever he did, whatever he sought?
With a nature dual
Of will and mind
A thing that sees, and a thing that’s blind.	125
Come! to our dance! Something hated him
Made us over him, therefore fated him. [They join hands and dance.]
Loki:—Passion, reason, custom, rules,
Creeds of the churches, lore of the schools,
Taint in the blood and strength of soul.	130
Flesh too weak for the will’s control;
Poverty, riches, pride of birth,
Wailing, laughter, over the earth,
Here I have you caught again,
Enter my web, ye sons of men.	135
Yogarindra:—Look in my mirror! Isn’t it real?
What do you think now, what do you feel?
Here is treasure of gold heaped up;
Here is wine in the festal cup.
Tendrils blossoming, turned to whips,	140
Love with her breasts and scarlet lips.
Breathe in their nostrils.
Beelzebub:—Falsehood’s breath,
Out of nothingness into death.
Out of the mold, out of the rocks	145
Wonder, mockery, paradox!
Soaring spirit, groveling flesh,
Bait the trap, and spread the mesh.
Give him hunger, lure him with truth,
Give him the iris hopes of Youth.	150
Starve him, shame him, fling him down,
Whirled in the vortex of the town.
Break him, age him, till he curse
The idiot face of the universe.
Over and over we mix the clay,—	155
What was dust is alive to-day.
The Three:—Thus is the hell-born tangle wound
Swiftly, swiftly round and round.
Beelzebub:—[Waving his trumpet.] You live! Away!
One of the Figures:—How strange and new!	160
I am I, and another, too.
Another Figure:—I was a sun-dew’s leaf, but now
What is this longing?—
Another Figure:—Earth below
I was a seedling magnet-tipped	165
Drawn down earth—
Another Figure:—And I was gripped
Electrons in a granite stone,
Now I think.
Another Figure:—Oh, how alone!	170
Another Figure:—My lips to thine. Through thee I find
Something alone by love divined!
Beelzebub:—Begone! No, wait. I have bethought me, friends;
Let’s give a play. [He waves his trumpet.]
To yonder green rooms go. [The figures disappear.]	175
Yogarindra:—Oh, yes, a play! That’s very well, I think,
But who will be the audience? I must throw
Illusion over all.
Loki:—And I must shift
The scenery, and tangle up the plot.	180
Beelzebub:—Well, so you shall! Our audience shall come
From yonder graves. [He blows his trumpet slightly louder than before. The scene changes. A stage arises among the graves. The curtain is down, concealing the creatures just created, illuminated halfway up by spectral lights. Beelzebub stands before the curtain.]
Beelzebub:—[A terrific blast of the trumpet.] Who-o-o-o-o-o! [Immediately there is a rustling as of the shells of grasshoppers stirred by a wind; and hundreds of the dead, including those who have appeared in the Anthology, hurry to the sound of the trumpet.]
A Voice:—Gabriel! Gabriel!
Many Voices:—The Judgment day!	185
Beelzebub:—Be quiet, if you please
At least until the stars fall and the moon.
Many Voices:—Save us! Save us! [Beelzebub extends his hands over the audience with a benedictory motion and restores order.]
Beelzebub:—Ladies and gentlemen, your kind attention
To my interpretation of the scene.	190
I rise to give your fancy comprehension,
And analyze the parts of the machine.
My mood is such that I would not deceive you,
Though still a liar and the father of it,
From judgment’s frailty I would retrieve you,	195
Though falsehood is my art and though I love it.
Down in the habitations whence I rise,
The roots of human sorrow boundless spread.
Long have I watched them draw the strength that lies
In clay made richer by the rotting dead.	200
Here is a blossom, here a twisted stalk,
Here fruit that sourly withers ere its prime;
And here a growth that sprawls across the walk,
Food for the green worm, which it turns to slime.
The ruddy apple with a core of cork	205
Springs from a root which in a hollow dangles,
Not skillful husbandry nor laborious work
Can save the tree which lightning breaks and tangles.
Why does the bright nasturtium scarcely flower
But that those insects multiply and grow,	210
Which make it food, and in the very hour
In which the veinèd leafs and blossoms blow?
Why does a goodly tree, while fast maturing,
Turn crooked branches covered o’er with scale?
Why does the tree whose youth was not assuring	215
Prosper and bear while all its fellows fail?
I under earth see much. I know the soil.
I know where mold is heavy and where thin.
I see the stones that thwart the plowman’s toil,
The crooked roots of what the priests call sin.	220
I know all secrets, even to the core,
What seedlings will be upas, pine or laurel;
It cannot change howe’er the field’s worked o’er.
Man’s what he is and that’s the devil’s moral.
So with the souls of the ensuing drama	225
They sprang from certain seed in certain earth.
Behold them in the devil’s cyclorama,
Shown in their proper light for all they’re worth.
Now to my task: I’ll give an exhibition
Of mixing the ingredients of spirit. [He waves his wand.]	230
Come, crucible, perform your magic mission,
Come, recreative fire, and hover near it!
I’ll make a soul, or show how one is made. [He waves his wand again. Parti-colored flames appear.]
This is the woman you shall see anon! [A red flame appears.]
This hectic flame makes all the world afraid:	235
It was a soldier’s scourge which ate the bone.
His daughter bore the lady of the action,
And died at thirty-nine of scrofula.
She was a creature of a sweet attraction,
Whose sex-obsession no one ever saw. [A purple flame appears.]	240
Lo! this denotes aristocratic strains
Back in the centuries of France’s glory. [A blue flame appears.]
And this the will that pulls against the chains
Her father strove until his hair was hoary.
Sorrow and failure made his nature cold,	245
He never loved the child whose woe is shown,
And hence her passion for the things which gold
Brings in this world of pride, and brings alone.
The human heart that’s famished from its birth
Turns to the grosser treasures, that is plain.	250
Thus aspiration fallen fills the earth
With jungle growths of bitterness and pain.
Of Celtic, Gallic fire our heroine!
Courageous, cruel, passionate and proud.
False, vengeful, cunning, without fear o’ sin.	255
A head that oft is bloody, but not bowed.
Now if she meet a man—suppose our hero,
With whom her chemistry shall war yet mix,
As if she were her Borgia to his Nero,
’Twill look like one of Satan’s little tricks!	260
However, it must be. The world’s great garden
Is not all mine. I only sow the tares.
Wheat should be made immune, or else the Warden
Should stop their coming in the world’s affairs.
But to our hero! Long ere he was born	265
I knew what would repel him and attract.
Such spirit mathematics, fig or thorn,
I can prognosticate before the fact. [A yellow flame appears.]
This is a grandsire’s treason in an orchard
Against a maid whose nature with his mated. [Lurid flames appear.]	270
And this his memory distrait and tortured,
Which marked the child with hate because she hated.
Our heroine’s grand dame was that maid’s own cousin—
But never this our man and woman knew.
The child, in time, of lovers had a dozen,	275
Then wed a gentleman upright and true.
And thus our hero had a double nature:
One half of him was bad, the other good.
The devil must exhaust his nomenclature
To make this puzzle rightly understood.	280
But when our hero and our heroine met
They were at once attracted, the repulsion
Was hidden under Passion, with her net
Which must enmesh you ere you feel revulsion.
The virus coursing in the soldier’s blood,	285
The orchard’s ghost, the unknown kinship ’twixt them,
Our hero’s mother’s lovers round them stood,
Shadows that smiled to see how Fate had fixed them.
This twain pledge vows and marry, that’s the play.
And then the tragic features rise and deepen.	290
He is a tender husband. When away
The serpents from the orchard slyly creep in.
Our heroine, born of spirit none too loyal,
Picks fruit of knowledge—leaves the tree of life.
Her fancy turns to France corrupt and royal,	295
Soon she forgets her duty as a wife.
You know the rest, so far as that’s concerned,
She met exposure and her husband slew her.
He lost his reason, for the love she spurned.
He prized her as his own—how slight he knew her. [He waves a wand, showing a man in a prison cell.]	300
Now here he sits condemned to mount the gallows—
He could not tell his story—he is dumb.
Love, says your poets, is a grace that hallows,
I call it suffering and martyrdom.
The judge with pointed finger says, “You killed her.”	305
Well, so he did—but here’s the explanation;
He could not give it. I, the drama-builder,
Show you the various truths and their relation. [He waves his wand.]
Now, to begin. The curtain is ascending,
They meet at tea upon a flowery lawn.	310
Fair, is it not? How sweet their souls are blending—
The author calls the play “Laocoön.”
A Voice:—Only an earth dream.
Another Voice:—With which we are done.
A flash of a comet	315
Upon the earth stream.
Another Voice:—A dream twice removed,
A spectral confusion
Of earth’s dread illusion.
A Far Voice:—These are the ghosts	320
From the desolate coasts.
Would you go to them?
Only pursue them.
Whatever enshrined is
Within you is you.	325
In a place where no wind is,
Out of the damps,
Be ye as lamps.
Flame-like aspire,
To me alone true,	330
The Life and the Fire. [Beelzebub, Loki, and Yogarindra vanish. The phantasmagoria fades out. Where the dead seemed to have assembled, only heaps of leaves appear. There is the light as of dawn. Voices of Spring.]
First Voice:—The springtime is come, the winter departed,
She wakens from slumber and dances light-hearted.
The sun is returning
We are done with alarms,	335
Earth lifts her face burning,
Held close in his arms.
The sun is an eagle
Who broods o’er his young,
The earth is his nursling	340
In whom he has flung
The life-flame in seed,
In blossom desire,
Till fire become life,
And life become fire.	345
Second Voice:—I slip and I vanish,
I baffle your eye;
I dive and I climb,
I change and I fly.
You have me, you lose me,	350
Who have me too well,
Now find me and use me—
I am here in a cell.
Third Voice:—You are there in a cell?
Oh, now for a rod	355
With which to divine you—
Second Voice:—Nay, child, I am God.
Fourth Voice:—When the waking waters rise from their beds of snow, under the hill,
In little rooms of stone where they sleep when icicles reign,
The April breezes scurry through woodlands, saying “Fulfill!	360
Awaken roots under cover of soil—it is Spring again.”
Then the sun exults, the moon is at peace, and voices
Call to the silver shadows to lift the flowers from their dreams.
And a longing, longing enters my heart of sorrow, my heart that rejoices
In the fleeting glimpse of a shining face, and her hair that gleams.	365
I arise and follow alone for hours the winding way by the river,
Hunting a vanishing light, and a solace for joy too deep.
Where do you lead me, wild one, on and on forever?
Over the hill, over the hill, and down to the meadows of sleep.
The Sun:—Over the soundless depths of space for a hundred million miles	370
Speeds the soul of me, silent thunder, struck from a harp of fire.
Before my eyes the planets wheel and a universe defiles,
I but a luminant speck of dust upborne in a vast desire.
What is my universe that obeys me—myself compelled to obey
A power that holds me and whirls me over a path that has no end?	375
And there are my children who call me great, the giver of life and day,
Myself a child who cry for life and know not whither I tend.
A million million suns above me, as if the curtain of night
Were hung before creation’s flame, that shone through the weave of the cloth,
Each with its worlds and worlds and worlds crying upward for light,	380
For each is drawn in its course to what?—as the candle draws the moth.
The Milky Way:—Orbits unending,
Life never ending,
Power without end.
A Voice:—Wouldst thou be lord,	385
Not peace but a sword.
Not heart’s desire—
Ever aspire.
Worship thy power,
Conquer thy hour,	390
Sleep not but strive,
So shalt thou live.
Infinite Depths:—Infinite Law,
Infinite Life.

 
  
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

The Spooniad (by Edgar Lee Masters)

The Spooniad
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

The late Mr. Jonathan Swift Somers, laureate of Spoon River,planned The Spooniad as an epic in twenty-four books, but unfortunately did not live to complete even the first book. The fragment was found among his papers by William Marion Reedy and was for the first time published in Reedy’s Mirror of December 18th, 1914.

Of John Cabanis’ wrath and of the strife
Of hostile parties, and his dire defeat
Who led the common people in the cause
Of freedom for Spoon River, and the fall
Of Rhodes’ bank that brought unnumbered woes
And loss to many, with engendered hate
That flamed into the torch in Anarch hands
To burn the court–house, on whose blackened wreck
A fairer temple rose and Progress stood–
Sing, muse, that lit the Chian’s face with smiles
Who saw the ant-like Greeks and Trojans crawl
About Scamander, over walls, pursued
Or else pursuing, and the funeral pyres
And sacred hecatombs, and first because
Of Helen who with Paris fled to Troy
As soul-mate; and the wrath of Peleus’ son,
Decreed to lose Chryseis, lovely spoil
Of war, and dearest concubine. 
                                         Say first,
Thou son of night, called Momus, from whose eyes
No secret hides, and Thalia, smiling one,
What bred ‘twixt Thomas Rhodes and John Cabanis
The deadly strife? His daughter Flossie, she,
Returning from her wandering with a troop
Of strolling players, walked the village streets,
Her bracelets tinkling and with sparkling rings
And words of serpent wisdom and a smile
Of cunning in her eyes. Then Thomas Rhodes,
Who ruled the church and ruled the bank as well,
Made known his disapproval of the maid;
And all Spoon River whispered and the eyes
Of all the church frowned on her, till she knew
They feared her and condemned. 
                                         But them to flout
She gave a dance to viols and to flutes,
Brought from Peoria, and many youths,
But lately made regenerate through the prayers
Of zealous preachers and of earnest souls,
Danced merrily, and sought her in the dance,
Who wore a dress so low of neck that eyes
Down straying might survey the snowy swale
Till it was lost in whiteness. 
                                         With the dance
The village changed to merriment from gloom.
The milliner, Mrs. Williams, could not fill
Her orders for new hats, and every seamstress
Plied busy needles making gowns; old trunks
And chests were opened for their store of laces
And rings and trinkets were brought out of hiding
And all the youths fastidious grew of dress;
Notes passed, and many a fair one’s door at eve
Knew a bouquet, and strolling lovers thronged
About the hills that overlooked the river.
Then, since the mercy seats more empty showed,
One of God’s chosen lifted up his voice:
“The woman of Babylon is among us; rise
Ye sons of light and drive the wanton forth!”
So John Cabanis left the church and left
The hosts of law and order with his eyes
By anger cleared, and him the liberal cause
Acclaimed as nominee to the mayoralty
To vanquish A. D. Blood. 
                                         But as the war
Waged bitterly for votes and rumors flew
About the bank, and of the heavy loans
Which Rhodes’ son had made to prop his loss
In wheat, and many drew their coin and left
The bank of Rhodes more hollow, with the talk
Among the liberals of another bank
Soon to be chartered, lo, the bubble burst
‘Mid cries and curses; but the liberals laughed
And in the hall of Nicholas Bindle held
Wise converse and inspiriting debate.

High on a stage that overlooked the chairs
Where dozens sat, and where a pop-eyed daub
Of Shakespeare, very like the hired man
Of Christian Dallmann, brow and pointed beard,
Upon a drab proscenium outward stared,
Sat Harmon Whitney, to that eminence,
By merit raised in ribaldry and guile,
And to the assembled rebels thus he spake:
“Whether to lie supine and let a clique
Cold-blooded, scheming, hungry, singing psalms,
Devour our substance, wreck our banks and drain
Our little hoards for hazards on the price
Of wheat or pork, or yet to cower beneath
The shadow of a spire upreared to curb
A breed of lackeys and to serve the bank
Coadjutor in greed, that is the question.
Shall we have music and the jocund dance,
Or tolling bells? Or shall young romance roam
These hills about the river, flowering now
To April’s tears, or shall they sit at home,
Or play croquet where Thomas Rhodes may see,
I ask you? If the blood of youth runs o’er
And riots ‘gainst this regimen of gloom,
Shall we submit to have these youths and maids
Branded as libertines and wantons?” 
                                         Ere
His words were done a woman’s voice called “No!”
Then rose a sound of moving chairs, as when
The numerous swine o’er-run the replenished troughs;
And every head was turned, as when a flock
Of geese back-turning to the hunter’s tread
Rise up with flapping wings; then rang the hall
With riotous laughter, for with battered hat
Tilted upon her saucy head, and fist
Raised in defiance, Daisy Fraser stood.
Headlong she had been hurled from out the hall
Save Wendell Bloyd, who spoke for woman’s rights,
Prevented, and the bellowing voice of Burchard.
Then ‘mid applause she hastened toward the stage
And flung both gold and silver to the cause
And swiftly left the hall. 
                                         Meantime upstood
A giant figure, bearded like the son
Of Alcmene, deep-chested, round of paunch,
And spoke in thunder: “Over there behold
A man who for the truth withstood his wife–
Such is our spirit–when that A. D. Blood
Compelled me to remove Dom Pedro–” 
                                         Quick
Before Jim Brown could finish, Jefferson Howard
Obtained the floor and spake: “Ill suits the time
For clownish words, and trivial is our cause
If naught’s at stake but John Cabanis’ wrath,
He who was erstwhile of the other side
And came to us
for vengeance. More’s at stake
Than triumph for New England or Virginia.
And whether rum be sold, or for two years
As in the past two years, this town be dry
Matters but little–Oh yes, revenue
For sidewalks, sewers; that is well enough!
I wish to God this fight were now inspired
By other passion than to salve the pride
Of John Cabanis or his daughter. Why
Can never contests of great moment spring
From worthy things, not little? Still, if men
Must always act so, and if rum must be
The symbol and the medium to release
From life’s denial and from slavery,
Then give me rum!” 
                                         Exultant cries arose.
Then, as George Trimble had o’ercome his fear
And vacillation and begun to speak,
The door creaked and the idiot, Willie Metcalf,
Breathless and hatless, whiter than a sheet,
Entered and cried: “The marshal’s on his way
To arrest you all. And if you only knew
Who’s coming here to-morrow; I was listening
Beneath the window where the other side
Are making plans.” 
                                         So to a smaller room
To hear the idiot’s secret some withdrew
Selected by the Chair; the Chair himself
And Jefferson Howard, Benjamin Pantier,
And Wendell Bloyd, George Trimble, Adam Weirauch,
Imanuel Ehrenhardt, Seth Compton, Godwin James
And Enoch Dunlap, Hiram Scates, Roy Butler,
Carl Hamblin, Roger Heston, Ernest Hyde
And Penniwit, the artist, Kinsey Keene,
And E. C. Culbertson and Franklin Jones,
Benjamin Fraser, son of Benjamin Pantier
By Daisy Fraser, some of lesser note,
And secretly conferred. 
                                         But in the hall
Disorder reigned and when the marshal came
And found it so, he marched the hoodlums out
And locked them up. 
                                         Meanwhile within a room
Back in the basement of the church, with Blood
Counseled the wisest heads. Judge Somers first,
Deep learned in life, and next him, Elliott Hawkins
And Lambert Hutchins; next him Thomas Rhodes
And Editor Whedon; next him Garrison Standard,
A traitor to the liberals, who with lip
Upcurled in scorn and with a bitter sneer:
“Such strife about an insult to a woman–
A girl of eighteen “–Christian Dallman too,
And others unrecorded. Some there were
Who frowned not on the cup but loathed the rule
Democracy achieved thereby, the freedom
And lust of life it symbolized.

Now morn with snowy fingers up the sky
Flung like an orange at a festival
The ruddy sun, when from their hasty beds
Poured forth the hostile forces, and the streets
Resounded to the rattle of the wheels
That drove this way and that to gather in
The tardy voters, and the cries of chieftains
Who manned the battle. But at ten o’clock
The liberals bellowed fraud, and at the polls
The rival candidates growled and came to blows.
Then proved the idiot’s tale of yester-eve
A word of warning. Suddenly on the streets
Walked hog-eyed Allen, terror of the hills
That looked on Bernadotte ten miles removed.
No man of this degenerate day could lift
The boulders which he threw, and when he spoke
The windows rattled, and beneath his brows
Thatched like a shed with bristling hair of black,
His small eyes glistened like a maddened boar.
And as he walked the boards creaked, as he walked
A song of menace rumbled. Thus he came,
The champion of A. D. Blood, commissioned
To terrify the liberals. Many fled
As when a hawk soars o’er the chicken yard.
He passed the polls and with a playful hand
Touched Brown, the giant, and he fell against,
As though he were a child, the wall; so strong
Was hog-eyed Allen. But the liberals smiled.
For soon as hog-eyed Allen reached the walk,
Close on his steps paced Bengal Mike, brought in
By Kinsey Keene, the subtle-witted one,
To match the hog-eyed Allen. He was scarce
Three-fourths the other’s bulk, but steel his arms,
And with a tiger’s heart. Two men he killed
And many wounded in the days before,
And no one feared. 
                                         But when the hog-eyed one
Saw Bengal Mike his countenance grew dark,
The bristles o’er his red eyes twitched with rage,
The song he rumbled lowered. Round and round
The court-house paced he, followed stealthily
By Bengal Mike, who jeered him every step:
“Come, elephant, and fight! Come, hog-eyed coward!
Come, face about and fight me, lumbering sneak!
Come, beefy bully, hit me, if you can!
Take out your gun, you duffer, give me reason
To draw and kill you. Take your billy out.
I’ll crack your boar’s head with a piece of brick!”
But never a word the hog-eyed one returned
But trod about the court-house, followed both
By troops of boys and watched by all the men.
All day, they walked the square. But when Apollo
Stood with reluctant look above the hills
As fain to see the end, and all the votes
Were cast, and closed the polls, before the door
Of Trainor’s drug store Bengal Mike, in tones
That echoed through the village, bawled the taunt:
“Who was your mother, hog-eyed?” In a trice
As when a wild boar turns upon the hound
That through the brakes upon an August day
Has gashed him with its teeth, the hog-eyed one
Rushed with his giant arms on Bengal Mike
And grabbed him by the throat. Then rose to heaven
The frightened cries of boys, and yells of men
Forth rushing to the street. And Bengal Mike
Moved this way and now that, drew in his head
As if his neck to shorten, and bent down
To break the death grip of the hog-eyed one;
‘Twixt guttural wrath and fast-expiring strength
Striking his fists against the invulnerable chest
Of hog-eyed Allen. Then, when some came in
To part them, others stayed them, and the fight
Spread among dozens; many valiant souls
Went down from clubs and bricks. 
                                         But tell me, Muse,
What god or goddess rescued Bengal Mike?
With one last, mighty struggle did he grasp
The murderous hands and turning kick his foe.
Then, as if struck by lightning, vanished all
The strength from hog–eyed Allen, at his side
Sank limp those giant arms and o’er his face
Dread pallor and the sweat of anguish spread.
And those great knees, invincible but late,
Shook to his weight. And quickly as the lion
Leaps on its wounded prey, did Bengal Mike
Smite with a rock the temple of his foe,
And down he sank and darkness o’er his eyes
Passed like a cloud. 
             &nbsp
;                           As when the woodman fells
Some giant oak upon a summer’s day
And all the songsters of the forest shrill,
And one great hawk that has his nestling young
Amid the topmost branches croaks, as crash
The leafy branches through the tangled boughs
Of brother oaks, so fell the hog-eyed one
Amid the lamentations of the friends
Of A. D. Blood. 
                                         Just then, four lusty men
Bore the town marshal, on whose iron face
The purple pall of death already lay,
To Trainor’s drug store, shot by Jack McGuire.
And cries went up of “Lynch him!” and the sound
Of running feet from every side was heard
Bent on the   
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Webster Ford (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

Webster Ford
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,
The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M’Grew
Cried, “There’s a ghost,” and I, “It’s Delphic Apollo”;
And the son of the banker derided us, saying, “It’s light
By the flags at the water’s edge, you half-witted fools.”
And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long after
Poor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his death
Down, down, through bellowing darkness, I carried
The vision which perished with him like a rocket which falls
And quenches its light in earth, and hid it for fear
Of the son of the banker, calling on Plutus to save me?
Avenged were you for the shame of a fearful heart
Who left me alone till I saw you again in an hour
When I seemed to be turned to a tree with trunk and branches
Growing indurate, turning to stone, yet burgeoning
In laurel leaves, in hosts of lambent laurel,
Quivering, fluttering, shrinking, fighting the numbness
Creeping into their veins from the dying trunk and branches!
‘Tis vain, O youth, to fly the call of Apollo.
Fling yourselves in the fire, die with a song of spring,
If die you must in the spring. For none shall look
On the face of Apollo and live, and choose you must
‘Twixt death in the flame and death after years of sorrow,
Rooted fast in the earth, feeling the grisly hand,
Not so much in the trunk as in the terrible numbness
Creeping up to the laurel leaves that never cease
To flourish until you fall. O leaves of me
Too sere for coronal wreaths, and fit alone
For urns of memory, treasured, perhaps, as themes
For hearts heroic, fearless singers and livers–
Delphic Apollo! 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Elijah Browning (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Elijah Browning
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

I was among multitudes of children
Dancing at the foot of a mountain.
A breeze blew out of the east and swept them as leaves,
Driving some up the slopes. . . . All was changed.
Here were flying lights, and mystic moons, and dream-music.
A cloud fell upon us. When it lifted all was changed.
I was now amid multitudes who were wrangling.
Then a figure in shimmering gold, and one with a trumpet,
And one with a sceptre stood before me.
They mocked me and danced a rigadoon and vanished. . . .
All was changed again. Out of a bower of poppies
A woman bared her breasts and lifted her open mouth to mine.
I kissed her. The taste of her lips was like salt.
She left blood on my lips. I fell exhausted.
I arose and ascended higher, but a mist as from an iceberg
Clouded my steps. I was cold and in pain.
Then the sun streamed on me again,
And I saw the mists below me hiding all below them.
And I, bent over my staff, knew myself
Silhouetted against the snow. And above me
Was the soundless air, pierced by a cone of ice,
Over which hung a solitary star!
A shudder of ecstasy, a shudder of fear
Ran through me. But I could not return to the slopes–
Nay, I wished not to return.
For the spent waves of the symphony of freedom
Lapped the ethereal cliffs about me.
Therefore I climbed to the pinnacle.
I flung away my staff.
I touched that star
With my outstretched hand.
I vanished utterly.
For the mountain delivers to Infinite Truth
Whosoever touches the star! 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Isaiah Beethoven (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

Isaiah Beethoven
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

They told me I had three months to live,
So I crept to Bernadotte,
And sat by the mill for hours and hours
Where the gathered waters deeply moving
Seemed not to move:
O world, that’s you!
You are but a widened place in the river
Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her
Mirrored in us, and so we dream
And turn away, but when again
We look for the face, behold the low-lands
And blasted cotton-wood trees where we empty
Into the larger stream!
But here by the mill the castled clouds
Mocked themselves in the dizzy water;
And over its agate floor at night
The flame of the moon ran under my eyes
Amid a forest stillness broken
By a flute in a hut on the hill.
At last when I came to lie in bed
Weak and in pain, with the dreams about me,
The soul of the river had entered my soul,
And the gathered power of my soul was moving
So swiftly it seemed to be at rest
Under cities of cloud and under
Spheres of silver and changing worlds–
Until I saw a flash of trumpets
Above the battlements over Time. 
 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Aaron Hatfield (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Aaron Hatfield
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

Better than granite, Spoon River,
Is the memory-picture you keep of me
Standing before the pioneer men and women
There at Concord Church on Communion day.
Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth
Of Galilee who went to the city
And was killed by bankers and lawyers;
My voice mingling with the June wind
That blew over wheat fields from Atterbury;
While the white stones in the burying ground
Around the Church shimmered in the summer sun.
And there, though my own memories
Were too great to bear, were you, O pioneers,
With bowed heads breathing forth your sorrow
For the sons killed in battle and the daughters
And little children who vanished in life’s morning,
Or at the intolerable hour of noon.
But in those moments of tragic silence,
When the wine and bread were passed,
Came the reconciliation for us–
Us the ploughmen and the hewers of wood,
Us the peasants, brothers of the peasant of Galilee–
To us came the Comforter
And the consolation of tongues of flame! 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Russell Kincaid (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

Russell Kincaid
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

In the last spring I ever knew,
In those last days,
I sat in the forsaken orchard
Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered
The hills at Miller’s Ford;
Just to muse on the apple tree
With its ruined trunk and blasted branches,
And shoots of green whose delicate blossoms
Were sprinkled over the skeleton tangle,
Never to grow in fruit.
And there was I with my spirit girded
By the flesh half dead, the senses numb,
Yet thinking of youth and the earth in youth,–
Such phantom blossoms palely shining
Over the lifeless boughs of Time.
O earth that leaves us ere heaven takes us!
Had I been only a tree to shiver
With dreams of spring and a leafy youth,
Then I had fallen in the cyclone
Which swept me out of the soul’s suspense
Where it’s neither earth nor heaven. 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Judson Stoddard (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Judson Stoddard
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1 of 33 poems added to the 1916 edition]

On a mountain top above the clouds
That streamed like a sea below me
I said that peak is the thought of Buddha,
And that one is the prayer of Jesus,
And this one is the dream of Plato,
And that one there the song of Dante,
And this is Kant and this is Newton,
And this is Milton and this is Shakespeare,
And this the hope of the Mother Church,
And this–why all these peaks are poems,
Poems and prayers that pierce the clouds.
And I said “What does God do with mountains
That rise almost to heaven?” 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Joseph Dixon (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

Joseph Dixon
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

Who carved this shattered harp on my stone?
I died to you, no doubt. But how many harps and pianos
Wired I and tightened and disentangled for you,
Making them sweet again–with tuning fork or without?
Oh well! A harp leaps out of the ear of a man, you say,
But whence the ear that orders the length of the strings
To a magic of numbers flying before your thought
Through a door that closes against your breathless wonder?
Is there no Ear round the ear of a man, that it senses
Through strings and columns of air the soul of sound?
I thrill as I call it a tuning fork that catches
The waves of mingled music and light from afar,
The antennae of Thought that listens through utmost space.
Surely the concord that ruled my spirit is proof
Of an Ear that tuned me, able to tune me over
And use me again if I am worthy to use. 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Jeremy Carlisle (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

Jeremy Carlisle
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1 of 33 poems added to the 1916 edition]

Passer-by, sin beyond any sin
Is the sin of blindness of souls to other souls.
And joy beyond any joy is the joy
Of having the good in you seen, and seeing the good
At the miraculous moment!
Here I confess to a lofty scorn,
And an acrid skepticism.
But do you remember the liquid that Penniwit
Poured on tintypes, making them blue
With a mist like hickory smoke?
Then how the picture began to clear
Till the face came forth like life?
So you appeared to me, neglected ones,
And enemies too, as I went along
With my face growing clearer to you as yours
Grew clearer to me.
We were ready then to walk together
And sing in chorus and chant the dawn
Of life that is wholly life. 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]