A chaplain in the army After a long day of work in my hot-houses After I got religion and steadied down After I had attended lectures After you have enriched your soul A game of checkers? All they said was true All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me Almost the shell of a woman after the surgeon’s knife! As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hours A step-mother drove me from home, embittering me As to democracy, fellow citizens At first you will know not what they mean At first I suspected something At four o’clock in late October Back and forth, back and forth, to and from the church Bank broke and I lost my savings, The Better than granite, Spoon River Both for the country and for the man Buzzards wheel slowly, The Cooper should know about tubs, The Dear Jane! dear winsome Jane! Did I follow Truth wherever she led Did my widow flit about Did you ever find out Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon Did you ever see an alligator Doc Meyers said I had satyriasis Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo Do you remember, passer-by, the path Do you remember when I stood on the steps Do you think that odes and sermons Dust of my dust Earth keeps some vibration going, The Everyone laughed at Col. Prichard Father, thou canst never know From Bindle’s opera house in the village God! ask me not to record your wonders Harry Wilmans! You who fell in a swamp Have any of you, passers-by Have you seen walking through the village Henry got me with child He protested all his life long He ran away and was gone for a year Herbert broke our engagement of eight years Here I lie close to the grave Here lies the body of Lois Spears Here! You sons of the men Horses and men are just alike How did you feel, you libertarians How does it happen, tell me How many times, during the twenty years I am Minerva, the village poetess I began with Sir William Hamilton’s lectures I belonged to the church I, born in Weimar I bought every kind of machine that’s known I could not run or play Idea danced before us as a flag, The If a man could bite the giant hand If I could have lived another year If the excursion train to Peoria If the learned Supreme Court of Illinois If you in the village think that my work was a good one I grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men I had fiddled all at the county fair I had no objection at all I have studied many times I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk I inherited forty acres from my Father I know that he told that I snared his soul I leaned against the mantel, sick, sick I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you I looked like Abraham Lincoln I lost my patronage in Spoon River I made two fights for the people In a lingering fever many visions come to you I never saw any difference In life I was the town drunkard In my Spanish cloak In the last spring I ever knew In the lust of my strength In youth my wings were strong and tireless I preached four thousand sermons I ran away from home with the circus I reached the highest place in Spoon River I said when they handed me my diploma I sat on the bank above Bernadotte Is it true, Spoon River I spent my money trying to elect you Mayor I staggered on through darkness I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker It is true, fellow citizens It never came into my mind I tried to win the nomination It was just like everything else in life It was moon-light, and the earth sparkled It was only a little house of two rooms I wanted to be County Judge I wanted to go away to college I was a gun-smith in Odessa I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney I was among multitudes of children I was a peasant girl from Germany I was attorney for the “Q” I was crushed between Altgeld and Armour I was just turned twenty-one I was not beloved of the villagers I was only eight years old I was sick, but more than that, I was mad I was sixteen, and I had the most terrible dreams I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge I was the laughing-stock of the village I was the milliner I was the only child of Frances Harris of Virginia I was the Sunday school superintendent I was the Widow McFarlane I was well known and much beloved I was Willie Metcalf I went to the dances at Chandlerville I went up and down the streets I who kept the greenhouse I winged my bird I won the prize essay at school I would have been as great as George Eliot I would I had thrust my hands of flesh I wrote him a letter asking him for old times’ sake Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree Mr. Kessler, you know, was in the army My father who owned the wagon-shop My life’s blossom might have bloomed on all sides My mind was a mirror My mother was for woman’s rights My name used to be in the papers daily My parents thought that I would be My thanks, friends of the County Scientific Association My valiant fight! For I call it valiant My wife lost her health Neither spite, fellow citizens No other man, unless it was Doc Hill Not “a youth with hoary head and haggard eye” Not character, not fortitude, not patience Nothing in life is alien to you Not in that wasted garden Not, where the stairway turns in the dark Observe the clasped hands! Of John Cabanis’ wrath and of the strife Often Aner Clute at the gate Oh many times did Ernest Hyde and I Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina Oh, you young radicals and dreamers On a mountain top above the clouds Once in a while a curious weed unknown to me Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist Out of a cell into this darkened space Out of me unworthy and unknown Out of the lights and roar of cities Over and over they used to ask me Passer by Passer-by, sin beyond any sin Pine woods on the hill, The Press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked, The Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal, The Reading in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him Rhodes’ slave! Selling shoes and gingham Rich, honored by my fellow citizens Samuel is forever talking of his elm Secret of the stars,—gravitation, The Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick She loved me. Oh! how she loved me! She took my strength by minutes Silent before the jury Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter and Spring Sudden death of Eugene Carman, The Suppose it is nothing but the hive Suppose you stood just five feet two Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor? Their spirits beat upon mine There at Geneva where Mt. Blanc floated above There by the window in the old house There is something about Death There is the caw of a crow There would be a knock at the door They brought me ambrotypes They called me the weakling, the simpleton They first charged me with disorderly conduct They got me into the Sunday-school They have chiseled on my stone the words They laughed at me as “Prof. Moon” They told me I had three months to live They would have lynched me This I saw with my own eyes This weeping willow! To all in the village I seemed, no doubt To be able to see every side of every question Together in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law To this generation I would say Toward the last Vegetarian, non-resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian Very fall my sister Nancy Knapp, The Very well, you liberals Well, don’t you see this was the way of it Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted We quarreled that morning Were you not ashamed, fellow citizens We stand about this place—we, the memories What but the love of God could have softened What do you see now? What will you do when you come to die Whenever the Presbyterian bell When Fort Sumter fell and the war came When I died, the circulating library When I first came to Spoon River When I went to the city, Mary McNeely When my moustache curled When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley Where is my boy, my boy While I was handling Dom Pedro White men played all sorts of jokes on me, The Who carved this shattered harp on my stone? Whoever thou art who passest by Why are you running so fast hither and thither Why did Albert Schirding kill himself Why did you bruise me with your rough places Why was I not devoured by self-contempt With our hearts like drifting suns, had we but walked Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown Yes, here I lie close to a stunted rose bush Ye who are kicking against Fate Ye young debaters over the doctrine You are over there, Father Malloy You may think, passer-by, that Fate You never marveled, dullards of Spoon River You never understood, O unknown one You observe the carven hand You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River Your attention, Thomas Rhodes, president of the bank
