Gourgaud, these tears are tears - but look, this laugh, How hearty and serene - you see a laugh Which settles to a smile of lips and eyes Makes tears just drops of water on the leaves...
How beautiful are the bodies of men - The agonists! Their hearts beat deep as a brazen gong For their strength's behests. Their arms are lithe as a seasoned thong...
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....
Where are the cabalists, the insidious committees, The panders who betray the idiot cities For miles and miles toward the prairie sprawled, Ignorant, soul-less, rich, Smothered in fumes of pitch? ...
By the blue sky of a clear vision, And by the white light of a great illumination, And by the blood-red of brotherhood, Draw the sword, O Republic! Draw the sword!
Elenor Murray, daughter of Henry Murray, The druggist at LeRoy, a village near The shadow of Starved Rock, this Elenor But recently returned from France, a heart Who gave her service in the world at war,...
Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles...
As to democracy, fellow citizens, Are you not prepared to admit That I, who inherited riches and was to the manor born, Was second to none in Spoon River In my devotion to the cause of Liberty?...
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,...
Your red blossoms amid green leaves Are drooping, beautiful geranium! But you do not ask for water. You cannot speak! You do not need to speak - Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst,...
Well, there's the brazier set by the temple door: Blue flames run over the coals and flicker through. There are cool spaces of sky between white clouds - But what are flames and spaces but eyes of blue? ...
My mother was for woman's rights And my father was the rich miller at London Mills. I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them. When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries...
You have become a forge of snow white fire, A crucible of molten steel, O France! Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn And fade in light for you, O glorious France!...
Have you seen walking through the village A Man with downcast eyes and haggard face? That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty;...
Your speeches seemed to answer for the nonce, They do not justify your head in bronze! Your essays! talent's failures were to you Your philosophic gamut, but things true,...
I staggered on through darkness, There was a hazy sky, a few stars Which I followed as best I could. It was nine o'clock, I was trying to get home. But somehow I was lost,...
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....