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...
I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, I was ashamed of you. I despised you As the place of my nativity. And there in Rome, among the artists, Speaking Italian, speaking French,...
The very fall my sister Nancy Knapp Set fire to the house They were trying Dr. Duval For the murder of Zora Clemens, And I sat in the court two weeks Listening to every witness....
The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked, And I was tarred and feathered, For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago: "l saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes...
They have chiseled on my stone the words: "His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man." Those who knew me smile...
In life I was the town drunkard; When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground. The which redounded to my good fortune. For the Protestants bought this lot, And buried my body here,...
I went up and down the streets Here and there by day and night, Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick. Do you know why? My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs....
I looked like Abraham Lincoln. I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship, But standing for the rights of property and for order. A regular church attendant,...
My mind was a mirror: It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. In youth my mind was just a mirror In a rapidly flying car, Which catches and loses bits of the landscape. Then in time...
I was the only child of Frances Harris of Virginia And Thomas Greene of Kentucky, Of valiant and honorable blood both. To them I owe all that I became, Judge, member of Congress, leader in the State....
In a lingering fever many visions come to you: I was in the little house again With its great yard of clover Running down to the board-fence, Shadowed by the oak tree, Where we children had our swing....
I wrote him a letter asking him for old times, sake To discharge my sick boy from the army; But maybe he couldn't read it. Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter....
Do the boys and girls still go to Siever's For cider, after school, in late September? Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets On Aaron Hatfield's farm when the frosts begin?...
You never understood, O unknown one, Why it was I repaid Your devoted friendship and delicate ministrations First with diminished thanks, Afterward by gradually withdrawing my presence from you,...
Out of the lights and roar of cities, Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River, Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken, The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt,...
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,...
I was just turned twenty-one, And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent, Made a speech in Bindle's Opera House. "The honor of the flag must be upheld," he said,...
Eyes wide for wisdom, calm for joy or pain, Bright hair alloyed with silver, scarcely gold. And gracious lips flower pressed like buds to hold The guarded heart against excess of rain....