I winged my bird, Though he flew toward the setting sun; But just as the shot rang out, he soared Up and up through the splinters of golden light, Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled,...
Oh, you young radicals and dreamers, You dauntless fledglings Who pass by my headstone, Mock not its record of my captaincy in the army And my faith in God! They are not denials of each other....
Samuel is forever talking of his elm - But I did not need to die to learn about roots: I, who dug all the ditches about Spoon River. Look at my elm! Sprung from as good a seed as his,...
What but the love of God could have softened And made forgiving the people of Spoon River Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt And murdered him beside? Oh, loving hearts that took me in again...
I was a gun-smith in Odessa. One night the police broke in the room Where a group of us were reading Spencer. And seized our books and arrested us. But I escaped and came to New York...
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?...
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,...
You may think, passer-by, that Fate Is a pit-fall outside of yourself, Around which you may walk by the use of foresight And wisdom. Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men,...
Mr. Kessler, you know, was in the army, And he drew six dollars a month as a pension, And stood on the corner talking politics, Or sat at home reading Grant's Memoirs; And I supported the family by washing,...
Well, don't you see this was the way of it: We bought the farm with what he inherited, And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning His fathers mind against the rest of them....
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...