Works

When the air of October is sweet and cold as the wine of apples
Hanging ungathered in frosted orchards along the Grand River,
I take the road that winds by the resting fields and wander...

You see I worked for Arthur Fouche, he said,
Until the year before he died; I knew
That worthless son of his who lived with him,
Born when his mother was past bearing time,...

Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina
Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing,
One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing,...

Why did Albert Schirding kill himself
Trying to be County Superintendent of Schools,
Blest as he was with the means of life
And wonderful children, bringing him honor
Ere he was sixty?...

After you have enriched your soul
To the highest point,
With books, thought, suffering,
The understanding of many personalities,
The power to interpret glances, silences,...

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?...

I was well known and much beloved
And rich, as fortunes are reckoned
In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked.
That was the home for me,
Though all my children had flown afar -...

How does it happen, tell me,
That I who was most erudite of lawyers,
Who knew Blackstone and Coke
Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech
The court-house ever heard, and wrote...

We quarreled that morning,
For he was sixty - five, and I was thirty,
And I was nervous and heavy with the child
Whose birth I dreaded.
I thought over the last letter written me...

Toward the last
The truth of others was untruth to me;
The justice of others injustice to me;
Their reasons for death, reasons with me for life;
Their reasons for life, reasons with me for death;...

I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
When I felt the bullet enter my heart
I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,...

And under the shadows of cliffs of brick
The lake boats
Huddled like swans
Turn and sigh like sleepers
They are longing for the Spring!

I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk:
One, the house I built on the hill,
With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate.
The other, the lake-front in Chicago,...

What will you do when you come to die,
If all your life long you have rejected Jesus,
And know as you lie there,
He is not your friend?"
Over and over I said, I, the revivalist....

In Lola Schaefer's studio in the Tower,
Tea being served to painters, poets, singers,
Herr Ludwig Haibt, a none too welcome guest,
Of vital body, brisk, too loud of voice,
And Lilli Alm crossed swords.
...

I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins,
Born in a cottage near the grist - mill,
Reared in the mansion there on the hill,
With its spires, bay - windows, and roof of slate....

Herbert broke our engagement of eight years
When Annabelle returned to the village From the
Seminary, ah me!
If I had let my love for him alone
It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow -...

Love is a madness, love is a fevered dream,
A white soul lost in a field of scarlet flowers,
Love is a search for the lost, the ever vanishing gleam
Of wings, desires and sorrows and haunted hours.
...

Here is the secret of the death of Elenor,
From what I learn of her, from what I know
In living, knowing women, I am clear
About this Elenor Murray. Give me power
To get the letters, power to give a bond...

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis....