My father who owned the wagon-shop And grew rich shoeing horses Sent me to the University of Montreal. I learned nothing and returned home, Roaming the fields with Bert Kessler, Hunting quail and snipe....
My thanks, friends of the County Scientific Association, For this modest boulder, And its little tablet of bronze. Twice I tried to join your honored body, And was rejected...
Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel - Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens - But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof....
Here far away from the city, here by the yellow dunes I will lie and soothe my heart where the sea croons. For what can I do with strife, or what can I do with hate?...
The pathos in your face is like a peace, It is like resignation or a grace Which smiles at the surcease Of hope. But there is in your face The shadow of pain, and there is a trace Of memory of pain....
Everyone laughed at Col. Prichard For buying an engine so powerful That it wrecked itself, and wrecked the grinder He ran it with. But here is a joke of cosmic size: The urge of nature that made a man...
All they said was true: I wrecked my father's bank with my loans To dabble in wheat; but this was true - I was buying wheat for him as well, Who couldn't margin the deal in his name...
Even as I see, and share with you in seeing, The altar flame of your love's sacrifice; And even as I bear before the hour the vision, Your little hands in hospital and prison...
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....
I had no objection at all To selling my household effects at auction On the village square. It gave my beloved flock the chance To get something which had belonged to me For a memorial....
I preached four thousand sermons, I conducted forty revivals, And baptized many converts. Yet no deed of mine Shines brighter in the memory of the world, And none is treasured more by me:...
The Rev. Percy Ferguson, patrician Vicar of Christ, companion of the strong, And member of the inner shrine, where men Observe the rituals of the golden calf; A dilettante, and writer for the press...
When I first came to Spoon River I did not know whether what they told me Was true or false. They would bring me the epitaph And stand around the shop while I worked...
I grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men. If I saw a soul that was strong I wounded its pride and devoured its strength. The shelters of friendship knew my cunning...
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...
Oh many times did Ernest Hyde and I Argue about the freedom of the will. My favorite metaphor was Prickett's cow Roped out to grass, and free you know as far As the length of the rope....
She loved me. Oh! how she loved me I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me. But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out,...
I was sick, but more than that, I was mad At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life. So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria: "l am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River,...
If the learned Supreme Court of Illinois Got at the secret of every case As well as it does a case of rape It would be the greatest court in the world. A jury, of neighbors mostly, with "Butch" Weldy...