s: No more I trace the light footsteps of Pleasure,


s: Is it that Summer's forsaken our valleys,


s: No, no, the bees humming round the gay roses


s: Fain would I hide what I fear to discover,


s: All that has caused this wreck in my bosom,


s: Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal,


s: Come then, enamour'd and fond of my anguish,


s: Spring, Summer, Autumn, cannot match me."


s: "'Tis done!" says Jove; so ends my story,


s: Still anxious to secure your partial favour,


s: And not less anxious, sure, this night, than ever,


s: A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,


s: 'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;


s: So sought a poet, roosted near the skies,


s: Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;


s: Said, nothing like his works was ever printed;


s: And last, my prologue-business slily hinted.


s: "Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes,


s: "I know your bent--these are no laughing times:


s: Can you--but, Miss, I own I have my fears--


s: Dissolve in pause, and sentimental tears;


s: With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,


s: Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance;


s: Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand,


s: Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land?"


s: I could no more--askance the creature eyeing,


s: "D'ye think," said I, "this face was made for crying?


s: I'll laugh, that's poz-nay more, the world shall know it;


s: And so, your servant! gloomy Master Poet!"


s: Firm as my creed, Sirs, 'tis my fix'd belief,


s: That so much laughter, so much life enjoy'd.


s: Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye;


s: Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive--


s: To make three guineas do the work of five:


s: Laugh in Misfortune's face--the beldam witch!


s: Say, you'll be merry, tho' you can't be rich.


s: Thou other man of care, the wretch in love,


s: Who long with jiltish airs and arts hast strove;


s: Who, as the boughs all temptingly project,


s: Measur'st in desperate thought--a rope--thy neck--


s: Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep,


s: Would'st thou be cur'd, thou silly, moping elf?


s: Laugh at her follies--laugh e'en at thyself:


s: Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific,


s: And love a kinder--that's your grand specific.


s: And as we're merry, may we still be wise.


s: "Praise Woman still," his lordship roars,


s: The friend whom, wild from Wisdom's way,


s: Tune--"The King o' France he rade a race."


s: When there cam' a yell o' foreign squeels,


s: Where the wa'flow'r scents the dery air,


s: Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,


s: Chorus--A lassie all alone, was making her moan,


s: In the bluidy wars they fa', and our honour's gane an' a',


s: The cauld blae North was streaming forth


s: Might rous'd the slumbering Dead to hear;


s: Where the wa'flower scents the dewy air,


s: Might rous'd the slumb'ring Dead to hear;


s: How cold is that bosom which folly once fired,


s: How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten'd;


s: How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired,


s: How dull is that ear which to flatt'ry so listen'd!


s: From friendship and dearest affection remov'd;


s: Thou diedst unwept, as thou livedst unlov'd.


s: Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you;


s: So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear:


s: But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true,


s: And flowers let us cull for Maria's cold bier.


s: We'll search through the garden for each silly flower,


s: We'll roam thro' the forest for each idle weed;


s: But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower,


s: For none e'er approach'd her but rued the rash deed.


s: We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay;


s: There keen Indignation shall dart on his prey,


s: Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire.


s: Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect,


s: What once was a butterfly, gay in life's beam:


s: Want only of goodness denied her esteem.


s: Pinned To Mrs. Walter Riddell's Carriage


s: If you rattle along like your Mistress' tongue,


s: But a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road,


s: Sic a reptile was Wat, sic a miscreant slave,


s: That the worms ev'n damn'd him when laid in his grave;


s: "In his flesh there's a famine," a starved reptile cries,


s: "And his heart is rank poison!" another replies.


s: From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,


s: Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells;


s: Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,


s: And deal from iron hands the spare repast;


s: Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin,


s: Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;


s: Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,


s: Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing,


s: Beat hemp for others, riper for the string:


s: From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date,


s: Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;


s: Will make thy hair, tho' erst from gipsy poll'd,


s: Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care,


s: Or, haughty Chieftain, 'mid the din of arms


s: In Highland Bonnet, woo Malvina's charms;


s: While sans-culottes stoop up the mountain high,


s: Blest Highland bonnet! once my proudest dress,


s: Now prouder still, Maria's temples press;


s: I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,


s: I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,


s: And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze;


s: The crafty Colonel leaves the tartan'd lines,


s: The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred,


s: Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head,


s: Comes 'mid a string of coxcombs, to display


s: The shrinking Bard adown the alley skulks,


s: And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks:


s: Though there, his heresies in Church and State


s: Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate:


s: Still she undaunted reels and rattles on,


s: And dares the public like a noontide sun.


s: What scandal called Maria's jaunty stagger


s: The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?


s: Whose spleen (e'en worse than Burns' venom, when


s: And pours his vengeance in the burning line,)--


s: Who called her verse a Parish Workhouse, made


s: For motley foundling Fancies, stolen or strayed?


s: A Workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes,


s: And pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose!


s: In durance vile here must I wake and weep,


s: And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep;


s: That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore,


s: And vermin'd gipsies litter'd heretofore.


s: Why, Lonsdale, thus thy wrath on vagrants pour?


s: Must earth no rascal save thyself endure?


s: Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell,


s: Thou know'st the Virtues cannot hate thee worse;


s: The Vices also, must they club their curse?


s: Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all?


s: Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares;


s: As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls,


s: Who on my fair one Satire's vengeance hurls--


s: Who calls thee, pert, affected, vain coquette,


s: Who says that fool alone is not thy due,


s: And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true!


s: Our force united on thy foes we'll turn,


s: And dare the war with all of woman born:


s: For who can write and speak as thou and I?


s: And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply!


s: When Lascelles thought fit from this world to depart,


s: Some friends warmly thought of embalming his heart;


s: A bystander whispers--"Pray don't make so much o't,


s: The subject is poison, no reptile will touch it."


s: "Stop thief!" dame Nature call'd to Death,


s: No more, ye warblers of the wood! no more;


s: Nor pour your descant grating on my soul;


s: Thou young-eyed Spring! gay in thy verdant stole,


s: More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest roar.


s: How can ye charm, ye flowers, with all your dyes?


s: Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend!


s: That strain flows round the untimely tomb where Riddell lies.


s: Yes, pour, ye warblers! pour the notes of woe,


s: And soothe the Virtues weeping o'er his bier:


s: The man of worth--and hath not left his peer!


s: Is in his "narrow house," for ever darkly low.


s: Thee, Spring! again with joy shall others greet;


s: They shout--a People freed! They hail an Empire saved.


s: Canst laud the hand that struck th' insulting blow!


s: In danger's hour still flaming in the van,


s: Ye know, and dare maintain, the Royalty of Man!


s: The bards that erst have struck the patriot lyre,


s: And rous'd the freeborn Briton's soul of fire,


s: Dare injured nations form the great design,


s: Thy England execrates the glorious deed!


s: England in thunder calls, "The tyrant's cause is mine!"


s: That hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice


s: And hell, thro' all her confines, raise the exulting voice,


s: That hour which saw the generous English name


s: Linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame!


s: Fam'd for the martial deed, the heaven-taught song,


s: Beneath that hallow'd turf where Wallace lies


s: Hear it not, Wallace! in thy bed of death.


s: Firm as the rock, resistless as the storm?


s: Show me that eye which shot immortal hate,


s: Show me that arm which, nerv'd with thundering fate,


s: That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.


s: Here, where the Scottish Muse immortal lives,


s: In sacred strains and tuneful numbers joined,


s: Accept the gift; though humble he who gives,


s: Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.


s: But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,


s: Or Love, ecstatic, wake his seraph song,


s: While conscious Virtue all the strains endears,


s: And heaven-born Piety her sanction seals.


s: confluence of the Clouden and the Nith.--R. B.]


s: How, Liberty! girl, can it be by thee nam'd?


s: Free and Equal indeed, while mankind thou enchainest,


s: And over their hearts a proud Despot so reignest.


s: Requesting me to give her a Spring of Blossomed Thorn.


s: From the white-blossom'd sloe my dear Chloris requested


s: No, by Heavens! I exclaim'd, let me perish, if ever


s: We grant they're thine, those beauties all,


s: is expressed in the Rev. Dr. Babington's very looks.


s: Here lies a mock Marquis, whose titles were shamm'd,


s: If ever he rise, it will be to be damn'd.


s: She's down i' the grove, she's wi' a new Love,


s: She lets thee to wit she has thee forgot,


s: As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair,


s: Chorus.--For oh, her lanely nights are lang!


s: The Lover's Morning Salute To His Mistress


s: Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature?


s: The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray;


s: While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.


s: The night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast my sky:


s: 'Tis then--'tis then I wake to life and joy!


s: Thro' gentle showers, the laughing flowers


s: Tune--"My lodging is on the cold ground."


s: These wild-wood flowers I've pu'd, to deck


s: When all the flow'rs were fresh and gay.


s: Chorus.--Lassie wi'the lint-white locks,


s: Whilst thou did pledge the Powers above,


s: Both. For a' the joys that gowd can gie,


s: She. What's a' the joys that gowd can gie?


s: Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair,


s: Whene'er I forgather wi' Sorrow and Care,


s: I gie them a skelp as they're creeping alang,


s: Wi' a cog o' gude swats and an auld Scottish sang.


s: I whiles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought;


s: But Man is a soger, and Life is a faught;


s: My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch,


s: And my Freedom's my Lairdship nae monarch dare touch.


s: A townmond o' trouble, should that be may fa',


s: A night o' gude fellowship sowthers it a':


s: When at the blythe end o' our journey at last,


s: Wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past?


s: Blind Chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way;


s: Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jade gae:


s: Come Ease, or come Travail, come Pleasure or Pain,


s: My warst word is: "Welcome, and welcome again!"


s: Farewell, thou stream that winding flows


s: Chorus--Canst thou leave me thus, my Katie?


s: Thou maysn find those will love thee dear,


s: Tune--"There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame."


s: Now in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays,


s: And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er her braes;


s: While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw,


s: But to me it's delightless--my Nanie's awa.


s: The snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn,


s: And violetes bathe in the weet o' the morn;


s: They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,


s: Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn,


s: The shepherd to warn o' the grey-breaking dawn,


s: And thou mellow mavis that hails the night-fa',


s: Come Autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and grey,


s: And soothe me wi' tidings o' Nature's decay:


s: The dark, dreary Winter, and wild-driving snaw


s: Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my e'e;


s: Lang, lang has Joy been a stranger to me:


s: Forsaken and friendless, my burden I bear,


s: And the sweet voice o' Pity ne'er sounds in my ear.


s: Love thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I luv'd;


s: Love, thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I pruv'd;


s: But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast,


s: I can feel, by its throbbings, will soon be at rest.


s: Down by yon stream, and yon bonie castle-green;


s: For there he is wand'ring and musing on me,


s: Wha wad soon dry the tear-drop that clings to my e'e.


s: Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;


s: That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,


s: When yon green leaves fade frae the tree,


s: Lines sent with a Present of a Dozen of Porter.


s: No more of your guests, be they titled or not,


s: Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit,


s: There was a bonie lass, and a bonie, bonie lass,


s: Till War's loud alarms tore her laddie frae her arms,


s: Over sea, over shore, where the cannons loudly roar,


s: And nocht could him quail, or his bosom assail,


s: Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet,


s: Peel a willow wand to be him boots and jacket;


s: The rose upon the breir will be him trews an' doublet,


s: Twice a lily-flower will be him sark and cravat;


s: Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet,


s: Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet.


s: Chorus--O gude ale comes and gude ale goes;


s: Nae star blinks thro' the driving sleet;


s: The sweetest flower that deck'd the mead,


s: There's nane sall ken, there's nane can guess


s: How blest ye flowers that round her blaw,


s: Like brothers they'll stand by each other,


s: And there will be folk frae Saint Mary's


s: And where is our King's Lord Lieutenant,


s: But mark ye! there's trusty Kerroughtree,


s: Teugh Jockie, staunch Geordie, an' Wellwood,


s: And there will be Collieston's whiskers,


s: Then hey! the chaste Interest o' Broughton


s: And hey! for the blessin's 'twill bring;


s: But now Yerl Galloway's sceptre's broke,


s: Prepar'd Power's proudest frown to brave,


s: Chorus--The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't,


s: Chorus--We'll hide the Cooper behint the door,


s: But the body he was sae doited and blin',


s: They cooper'd at e'en, they cooper'd at morn,


s: And swears that there they sall stan' O.


s: And drank--"Young man, now sleep ye soun'."


s: Chorus--The bonie lass made the bed to me,


s: "Haud aff your hands, young man!" she said,


s: I claps'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne,


s: While the tear stood twinkling in her e'e;


s: But never, never can come near the heart.


s: Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is,


s: In Love's delightful fetters she chains the willing soul!


s: And feel thro' every vein Love's raptures roll.


s: 'Twas na her bonie blue e'e was my ruin,


s: Fair tho' she be, that was ne'er my undoin';


s: 'Twas the dear smile when nae body did mind us,


s: 'Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o' kindness:


s: 'Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o' kindness.


s: Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me,


s: Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me,


s: But tho' fell fortune should fate us to sever,


s: Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever:


s: Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever.


s: Chloris, I'm thine wi' a passion sincerest,


s: And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest!


s: And thou'rt the angel that never can alter,


s: Sooner the sun in his motion would falter:


s: Sooner the sun in his motion would falter.


s: Their groves o' sweet myrtle let Foreign Lands reckon,


s: Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;


s: Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan,


s: Wi' the burn stealing under the lang, yellow broom.


s: Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers


s: Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk, lowly, unseen;


s: For there, lightly tripping, among the wild flowers,


s: A-list'ning the linnet, aft wanders my Jean.


s: Tho' rich is the breeze in their gay, sunny valleys,


s: And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave;


s: Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace,


s: What are they?--the haunt of the Tyrant and Slave.


s: The Slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains,


s: He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains,


s: Save Love's willing fetters--the chains of his Jean.


s: Last May, a braw wooer cam doun the lang glen,


s: I said, there was naething I hated like men--


s: The deuce gae wi'm, to believe me, believe me;


s: He spak o' the darts in my bonie black e'en,


s: I said, he might die when he liked for Jean--


s: The Lord forgie me for liein, for liein;


s: A weel-stocked mailen, himsel' for the laird,


s: And marriage aff-hand, were his proffers;


s: I never loot on that I kenn'd it, or car'd;


s: But thought I might hae waur offers, waur offers;


s: But what wad ye think?--in a fortnight or less--


s: He up the Gate-slack to my black cousin, Bess--


s: Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her, could bear her;


s: Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her.


s: But a' the niest week, as I petted wi' care,


s: But wha but my fine fickle wooer was there,


s: I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock,


s: But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink,


s: My wooer he caper'd as he'd been in drink,


s: And vow'd I was his dear lassie, dear lassie,


s: I spier'd for my cousin fu' couthy and sweet,


s: And how her new shoon fit her auld schachl't feet,


s: But heavens! how he fell a swearin, a swearin,


s: He begged, for gudesake, I wad be his wife,


s: So e'en to preserve the poor body in life,


s: I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow;


s: She's bonie, blooming, straight, and tall,


s: The wretch whose doom is "Hope nae mair"


s: Chorus--O that's the lassie o' my heart,


s: 'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair Friend,


s: Since thou, in all thy youth and charms,


s: (A world 'gainst Peace in constant arms)


s: Since life's gay scenes must charm no more,


s: Still nobler wealth hast thou in store--


s: And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted,


s: Ye've heard this while how I've been lickit,


s: But by that health, I've got a share o't,


s: But by that life, I'm promis'd mair o't,


s: Than 'twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job,


s: Which shews that heaven can boil the pot,


s: Chose one who should owe it all, d'ye see,


s: In your heretic sins may you live and die,


s: With your honours, as with a certain king,


s: Would pain and care and sickness spare it;


s: Dame Life, tho' fiction out may trick her,


s: And in paste gems and frippery deck her;


s: Syne, whip! his tail ye'll ne'er cast saut on,


s: To plague you with this draunting drivel,


s: Awa' wi' your witchcraft o' Beauty's alarms,


s: The slender bit Beauty you grasp in your arms,


s: O, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms,


s: O, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms.


s: Chorus--Then hey, for a lass wi' a tocher,


s: Your Beauty's a flower in the morning that blows,


s: And withers the faster, the faster it grows:


s: But the rapturous charm o' the bonie green knowes,


s: Ilk spring they're new deckit wi' bonie white yowes.


s: And e'en when this Beauty your bosom hath blest


s: The brightest o' Beauty may cloy when possess'd;


s: But the sweet, yellow darlings wi' Geordie impress'd,


s: The langer ye hae them, the mair they're carest.


s: Wha will buy my troggin, fine election ware,


s: Broken trade o' Broughton, a' in high repair?


s: Chorus--Buy braw troggin frae the banks o' Dee;


s: There's a noble Earl's fame and high renown,


s: For an auld sang--it's thought the gudes were stown--


s: Here's the worth o' Broughton in a needle's e'e;


s: Here's its stuff and lining, Cardoness' head,


s: Here's a little wadset, Buittle's scrap o' truth,


s: Pawn'd in a gin-shop, quenching holy drouth.


s: Here's an honest conscience might a prince adorn;


s: Frae the downs o' Tinwald, so was never worn.


s: Here's armorial bearings frae the manse o' Urr;


s: The crest, a sour crab-apple, rotten at the core.


s: Here's the worth and wisdom Collieston can boast;


s: By a thievish midge they had been nearly lost.


s: Here is Satan's picture, like a bizzard gled,


s: Pouncing poor Redcastle, sprawlin' like a taed.


s: Here's the font where Douglas stane and mortar names;


s: Lately used at Caily christening Murray's crimes.


s: Here is Murray's fragments o' the ten commands;


s: Gifted by black Jock to get them aff his hands.


s: Saw ye e'er sic troggin? if to buy ye're slack,


s: Hornie's turnin chapman--he'll buy a' the pack.


s: Chorus--Here's a health to ane I loe dear,


s: Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,


s: For then I am lockt in thine arms--Jessy.


s: 'Gainst Fortune's fell, cruel decree?--Jessy.


s: Full well thou know'st I love thee dear,


s: Auldfarran, auldfarrant, shrewd, old-fashioned, sagacious.


s: Ban', band (of the Presbyterian clergyman).


s: Bang, an effort; a blow; a large number.


s: Barley-brie, or bree, barley-brew-ale or whiskey.


s: Ben, a parlor (i.e., the inner apartment); into the parlor.


s: Beuk, a book: devil's pictur'd beuks-playing-cards.


s: Bicker, to flow swiftly and with a slight noise.


s: Biel, bield, a shelter; a sheltered spot.


s: Blastie, a blasted (i.e., damned) creature; a little wretch.


s: Blellum, a babbler; a railer; a blusterer.


s: Blue-gown, the livery of the licensed beggar.


s: Bole, a hole, or small recess in the wall.


s: Braxies, sheep that have died of braxie (a disease).


s: Brent, straight, steep (i.e., not sloping from baldness).


s: Broo, soup, broth, water; liquid in which anything is cooked.


s: Brooses, wedding races from the church to the home of the bride.


s: Brose, a thick mixture of meal and warm water; also a synonym for


s: Burdies, dim. of bird or burd (a lady); maidens.


s: Burnewin, the blacksmith (i.e., burn the wind).


s: Busk, to dress; to garb; to dress up; to adorn.


s: But, butt, in the kitchen (i.e., the outer apartment).


s: Bye attour (i.e., by and attour), beside and at a distance.


s: Byke, a bees' nest; a hive; a swarm; a crowd.


s: Calf-ward, grazing plot for calves (i.e., churchyard).


s: Canie, cannie, gentle, tractable, quiet, prudent, careful.


s: Cannilie, cannily, quietly, prudently, cautiously.


s: Cants, merry stories, canters or sprees or merry doings.


s: Carlin, carline a middle-aged, or old, woman; a beldam, a witch.


s: Chanter, bagpipes; the pipe of the bag-pipes which produces the


s: Cheek-for-chow, cheek-by-jowl (i.e. close beside).


s: Chiel, chield (i. e., child), a fellow, a young fellow.


s: Clachan, a small village about a church.


s: Clatter, noise, tattle, talk, disputation, babble.


s: Clatter, to make a noise by striking; to babble; to prattle.


s: Clinkum, clinkumbell, the beadle, the bellman.


s: Clish-ma-claver, gossip, taletelling; non-sense.


s: Clockin-time, clucking- (i. e., hatching-) time.


s: Clootie, cloots, hoofie, hoofs (a nickname of the Devil).


s: Cockie, dim. of cock (applied to an old man).


s: Coil, Coila, Kyle (one of the ancient districts of Ayrshire).


s: Coost (i. e., cast), looped, threw off, tossed, chucked.


s: Couthie, couthy, loving, affable, cosy, comfortable.


s: Croose, crouse, cocksure, set, proud, cheerful.


s: Crowdie, meal and cold water, meal and milk, porridge.


s: Crowdie-time, porridge-time (i. e., breakfast-time).


s: Crummock, cummock, a cudgel, a crooked staff.


s: Doited, muddled, doting; stupid, bewildered.


s: Donsie, vicious, bad-tempered; restive; testy.


s: Douce, doucely, dousely, sedately, prudently.


s: Dour-doure, stubborn, obstinate; cutting.


s: Eerie, apprehensive; inspiring ghostly fear.


s: Fasten-e'en, Fasten's Even (the evening before Lent).


s: Fawsont, seemly, well-doing; good-looking.


s: Fell, keen, cruel, dreadful, deadly; pungent.


s: Fen', fend, to look after; to care for; keep off.


s: Fient-ma-care, the fiend may care (I don't!).


s: Fittie-lan', the near horse of the hind-most pair in the plough.


s: Flinging, kicking out in dancing; capering.


s: Fud, a short tail (of a rabbit or hare).


s: Fur-ahin, the hindmost plough-horse in the furrow.


s: Fusionless, pithless, sapless, tasteless,


s: Gash, wise; self-complacent (implying prudence and prosperity);


s: Gaudsman, goadsman, driver of the plough-team.


s: Gillie, dim. of gill (glass of whiskey).


s: Girdle, plate of metal for firing cakes, bannocks.


s: Gloamin, twilight; gloamin-shot, sunset.


s: Gowff'd, struck, as in the game of golf.


s: Graith, implements, gear; furniture; attire.


s: Groanin maut, groaning malt, brewed for a lying-in.


s: Haffet, hauffet, the temple, the side of the head.


s: Haggis, a special Scots pudding, made of sheep's lungs, liver and


s: onions and oatmeal, boiled in a sheep's stomach.


s: Hallan, a partition wall, a porch, outer door.


s: Halloween, All Saints' Eve (31st of October).


s: Hallowmas, All Saints' Day (1st of November).


s: Hand-wal'd, hand-picked (i.e., choicest).


s: Hangie, hangman (nickname of the Devil).


s: Haslock woo, the wool on the neck of a sheep.


s: Haughs, low-lying rich lands by a river.


s: Haveril, hav'rel, one who talks nonsense.


s: Heugh, a hollow or pit; a crag, a steep bank.


s: Hissels, so many cattle as one person can attend (R. B.).


s: Hoddin, the motion of a sage countryman riding on a cart-horse


s: Hog-shouther, a kind of horse-play by jostling with the shoulder;


s: Hoodie-craw, the hooded crow, the carrion crow.


s: Hurdies, the loins, the crupper (R. B.) (i. e., the buttocks).


s: Ingle-cheek, fireside (properly the jamb of the fireplace).


s: Ingle-lowe, ingle-low, flame of the fire.


s: Jinker, dodger (coquette); a jinker noble; a noble goer.


s: Jow, to jow, a verb which included both the swinging motion and


s: Kail, kale, the colewort; cabbage; Scots' broth.


s: Kebbuck, a cheese; a kebbuck heel = the last crust of a cheese.


s: Kennin, a very little (merely as much as can be perceived).


s: Kittle, difficult, ticklish, delicate, fickle.


s: Knappin-hammers, hammers for breaking stones.


s: Laggen, the bottom angle of a wooden dish.


s: Lairing, sticking or sinking in moss or mud.


s: Lan'-afore, the foremost horse on the unplowed land side.


s: Lan'-ahin, the hindmost horse on the unplowed land side.


s: Leeze me on, dear is to me; blessings on; commend me to.


s: Loanin, the private road leading to a farm.


s: Loof (pl. looves), the palm of the hand.


s: Lucky, a grandmother, an old woman; an ale wife.


s: Lyart, gray in general; discolored by decay or old age.


s: Mark, merk, an old Scots coin (13 1-3d. sterling).


s: Mess John, Mass John, the parish priest, the minister.


s: Midden-hole, a gutter at the bottom of the dunghill.


s: Moop, to nibble, to keep close company, to meddle.


s: Nick (Auld), Nickie-ben, a name of the Devil.


s: Nick, to sever; to slit; to nail, to seize away.


s: Nicks, cuts; the rings on a cow's horns.


s: Oughtlins, aughtlins, aught in the least; at all.


s: Paidle, to paddle, to wade; to walk with a weak action.


s: Paitrick, a partridge; used equivocally of a wanton girl.


s: Poind, to seize, to distrain, to impound.


s: Rickles, small stacks of corn in the fields.


s: Rive, to split, to tear, to tug, to burst.


s: Row, rowe, to roll; to flow, as a river; to wrap.


s: Sicker, steady, certain; sicker score = strict conditions.


s: Skelp, to spank; skelpin at it = driving at it.


s: Sonsie, sonsy, pleasant, good-natured, jolly.


s: Sprittie, full of roots or sprouts (a kind of rush).


s: Strae death, death in bed. (i. e., on straw).


s: Tappet-hen, a crested hen-shaped bottle holding three quarts of


s: Tap-pickle, the grain at the top of the stalk.


s: Tarrow, to tarry; to be reluctant, to murmur; to weary.


s: Tester, an old silver coin about sixpence in value.


s: Thairm, small guts; catgut (a fiddle-string).


s: Twal, twelve; the twal = twelve at night.


s: Twalpennie worth, a penny worth (English money).


s: Twin, twine, to rob; to deprive; bereave.


s: Unco, remarkably, uncommonly, excessively.


s: Unco, remarkable, uncommon, terrible (sarcastic).


s: Wallop, to kick; to dangle; to gallop; to dance.


s: Water-fit, water-foot (the river's mouth).


s: Wee, a little; a wee = a short space or time.


s: Weepers, mournings (on the steeve or hat).


s: Wick a bore, hit a curling-stone obliquely and send it through an


s: Wintle, to stagger; to swing; to wriggle.


s: Woodie, woody, a rope (originally of withes); a gallows rope.


s: One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife-


s: All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.


s: One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,


s: One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire;


s: One after life in far-away London and Paris


s: Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag--


s: They brought them dead sons from the war,


s: Who played with life all his ninety years,


s: Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin,


s: Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago,


s: Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary's Grove,


s: Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who


s: And beholding how Old Bill and other grew in wealth


s: Robbed a traveler one Night near Proctor's Grove,


s: That was my way of going into bankruptcy.


s: Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways


s: Have you seen walking through the village


s: A Man with downcast eyes and haggard face?


s: That is my husband who, by secret cruelty


s: Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty;


s: Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth,


s: And with broken pride and shameful humility,


s: But what think you gnaws at my husband's heart?


s: The face of what I was, the face of what he made me!


s: These are driving him to the place where I lie.


s: They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks,


s: And then you must live  work out your soul,


s: Which Bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame.


s: THEY have chiseled on my stone the words:


s: "His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him


s: That nature might stand up and say to all the world,


s: While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues,


s: Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph


s: MY life's blossom might have bloomed on all sides


s: Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals


s: On the side of me which you in the village could see.


s: From the dust I lift a voice of protest:


s: Knowing that I could not bring forth life


s: In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.


s: Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived


s: That Henry loved me with a husband's love


s: Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas,


s: Which bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame


s: Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech


s: A brief that won the praise of Justice Breese


s: TOGETHER in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law,


s: And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend.


s: Down the gray road, friends, children, men and women,


s: Passing one by one out of life, left me till I was alone


s: With Nig for partner, bed-fellow; comrade in drink.


s: In the morning of life I knew aspiration and saw glory,


s: The she, who survives me, snared my soul


s: Till I, once strong of will, lay broken, indifferent,


s: Living with Nig in a room back of a dingy office.


s: Under my Jaw-bone is snuggled the bony nose of Nig


s: Our story is lost in silence. Go by, Mad world!


s: I know that he told that I snared his soul


s: But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes,


s: And loathe the smell of whiskey and onions,


s: And the rhythm of Wordsworth's "Ode" runs in your ears,


s: While he goes about from morning till night


s: "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"


s: And the only man with whom the law and morality


s: Is the very man that fills you with disgust


s: Every time you think of it  while you think of it


s: WELL, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted,


s: Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story.


s: I pass the effect of my father and mother;


s: Where I passed through every peril known


s: One night, in a room in the Rue de Rivoli,


s: I was drinking wine with a black-eyed cocotte,


s: She though they were amorous tears and smiled


s: But my soul was three thousand miles away,


s: In the days when you taught me in Spoon River.


s: And just because you no more could love me,


s: The eternal silence of you spoke instead.


s: And the Black-eyed cocotte took the tears for hers,


s: As well as the deceiving kisses I gave her.


s: Somehow, from that hour, I had a new vision


s: The boy I loved best of all in the school?--


s: I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart,


s: Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed


s: That all the clay of you, all of the dross of you,


s: Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist,


s: On each other, or what children will result?


s: There were Benjamin Pantier and his wife,


s: Good in themselves, but evil toward each other;


s: I Trainor, the druggist, a miser of chemicals,


s: Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received


s: Or for suppressing the facts about the bank,


s: Or the bankers? Or did Rev. Peet or Rev. Sibley


s: Give any part of their salary, earned by keeping still,


s: Or speaking out as the leaders wished them to do,


s: Along the street through rows of nods and smiles,


s: And caughs and words such as "there she goes."


s: Without contributing ten dollars and costs


s: Like the wings of a thousand butterflies.


s: I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating.


s: I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes


s: Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes,


s: Or fell from them, in exquisite draperies.


s: They drank it as it were the water of life;


s: The rising flame of my soul made their spirits gilt,


s: Like the wings of a butterfly drifting suddenly into sunlight.


s: And they cried to me for life, life, life.


s: Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street


s: For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,


s: He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;


s: And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up,


s: Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice.


s: Will some one go to the village newspaper,


s: And gather into a book the verses I wrote?--


s: That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?


s: You would not believe that I had been to school


s: Sometimes a man's life turns into a cancer


s: From being bruised and continually bruised,


s: Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life


s: Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow,


s: With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter,


s: So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days


s: No more you hear my footsteps in the morning,


s: Going to the grocery store for a little corn meal


s: They gave me a job in the canning works,


s: And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,


s: And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs.


s: And something sucked the flame in the tank.


s: As lack the Fiddler, saying over and over,


s: Did more for people in this town than l.


s: And all the weak, the halt, the improvident


s: And those who could not pay flocked to me.


s: I was healthy, happy, in comfortable fortune,


s: Blest with a congenial mate, my children raised,


s: And then one night, Minerva, the poetess,


s: They indicted me, the newspapers disgraced me,


s: The newspapers lied about him villainously;


s: That he was not at fault for Minerva's fall,


s: Poor soul so sunk in sin he could not see


s: That even trying to help her, as he called it,


s: Passers by, an ancient admonition to you:


s: If your ways would be ways of pleasantness,


s: I WAS the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.


s: I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail


s: Instead of running away and joining the army.


s: Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,


s: And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, "Pro Patria."


s: Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett


s: But that's not the reason he turned a soldier.


s: He caught me running with Lucius Atherton.


s: Then he stole the hogs and went to the war--


s: OUT of a cell into this darkened space--


s: My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,


s: Yet at the start there was a clear vision,


s: Do the boys and girls still go to Siever's


s: For cider, after school, in late September?


s: On Aaron Hatfield's farm when the frosts begin?


s: For many times with the laughing girls and boys


s: Played I along the road and over the hills


s: When the sun was low and the air was cool,


s: Standing leafless against a flaming west.


s: In the old orchards along the way to Siever's,


s: Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick.


s: My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs.


s: And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them.


s: Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of my


s: And hear them murmur their love and sorrow.


s: But oh, dear God, my soul trembled, scarcely able


s: When I saw Em Stanton behind the oak tree


s: MAURICE, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree.


s: The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass,


s: The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls,


s: But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous


s: Who broods upon what he calls our guilty love:--


s: Tell him that my love for you, no less than my love for him


s: Wrought out my destiny-- that through the flesh


s: I won spirit, and through spirit, peace.


s: At Thompson's Lake the trigger of my gun


s: And a great hole was shot through my heart.


s: Over me a fond father erected this marble shaft,


s: Were scattered near the pyramid of Caius Cestius


s: FROM Bindle's opera house in the village


s: But I tried to take it, my ambition fired


s: Seeing "East Lynne," played here in the village


s: True, I trailed back home, a broken failure,


s: How I wish Duse could stand amid the pathos


s: For he was sixty--five, and I was thirty,


s: And I was nervous and heavy with the child


s: I thought over the last letter written me


s: Then I took morphine and sat down to read.


s: Across the blackness that came over my eyes


s: I see the flickering light of these words even now:


s: As they carried me to the home of widow Morris


s: I could see the school-house in the valley


s: To which I played truant to steal rides upon the trains.


s: I prayed to live until I could ask your forgiveness--


s: And then your tears, your broken words of comfort!


s: From the solace of that hour I have gained infinite happiness.


s: Who snapped the toy pistol against my hand?


s: Was firing the cannon brought to Spoon River


s: By a piece of a cap shot under the skin of my hand,


s: And the boys all crowding about me saying:


s: "You'll die of lock-jaw, Charlie, sure."


s: I WAS sixteen, and I had the most terrible dreams,


s: And specks before my eyes, and nervous weakness.


s: And I couldn't remember the books I read,


s: Like Frank Drummer who memorized page after page.


s: And my back was weak, and I worried and worried,


s: And I was embarrassed and stammered my lessons,


s: And when I stood up to recite I'd forget


s: And about the dreams which I couldn't help.


s: So I knew I was marked for an early grave.


s: And then I slept the sleep without dreams


s: As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hours


s: With deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish's burrow,


s: Waiting for him to appear, pushing ahead,


s: First his waving antennae, like straws of hay,


s: And soon his body, colored like soap-stone,


s: What he knew, what he desired, and why he lived at all.


s: But later your vision watched for men and women


s: Hiding in burrows of fate amid great cities,


s: Looking for the souls of them to come out,


s: THE: Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal


s: Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede


s: And they presented me with a loaded cane


s: Before he drew the gun with which he killed


s: The Prohibitionists spent their money in vain


s: Fourteen years were enough for killing me.


s: And, when I cursed him for it, struck me


s: They would have hanged me except for this:


s: My lawyer, Kinsey Keene, was helping to land


s: Old Thomas Rhodes for wrecking the bank,


s: To the call of trumpets and the sound of drums


s: And now from the battlements of time, behold:


s: Thrice thirty million souls being bound together


s: I with eyes of spirit see the Transfiguration


s: But ye infinite brood of golden eagles nesting ever higher,


s: Wheeling ever higher, the sun-- light wooing


s: Forgive the blindness of the departed owl.


s: And met those who transgressed against me


s: With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing


s: That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised,


s: It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth


s: And fight him openly, even in the street,


s: When my estate was probated and everyone knew


s: To give, give, give to the churches, to the poor,


s: To the village!--me who had already given much.


s: That the pipe-organ, which I gave to the church,


s: Played its christening songs when Deacon Rhodes,


s: Worshipped for the first time after his acquittal?


s: I LEANED against the mantel, sick, sick,


s: Thinking of my failure, looking into the abysm,


s: A church bell sounded mournfully far away,


s: I smelled them . . . then there was irresistible disgust.


s: I pulled the trigger . . . blackness . . . light . . .


s: Unspeakable regret . . . fumbling for the world again.


s: Of what use is it To rid one's self of the world,


s: When no soul may ever escape the eternal destiny of life?


s: I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot


s: For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit,


s: Chin resting on hand, and deep--set eyes--


s: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity?


s: Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me,


s: Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel,


s: And I married him, giving birth to eight children,


s: And died from lock--jaw, an ironical death.


s: Do you remember when I stood on the steps


s: Of the Court House and talked free-silver,


s: Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader


s: Lost the first battle, I began to talk prohibition,


s: If I did not prove my morality to the people.


s: And the conservatives were never sure of me--


s: Practicing law, banking, or anything else.


s: And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds.


s: All broke our vows, myself among the rest.


s: Death claimed them all in some hideous form


s: And I began to write, write, write, reams on reams


s: "Go into the church and stand before the congregation


s: But just as I stood up and began to speak


s: I saw my little girl, who was sitting in the front seat--


s: Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived


s: And a promise of marriage from a rich man--


s: The editor, minister, judge, and all the people--


s: "A thief," "a thief," "a thief," wherever he goes


s: And he can't get work, and he can't get bread


s: Without stealing it, why the boy will steal.


s: It's the way the people regard the theft of the apple


s: I was an excellent knave of hearts and took many a trick.


s: But when the gray hairs began to appear--


s: Wherein I was all but shot for a heartless devil,


s: But only drabby affairs, warmed-over affairs


s: Partaking of short-orders, a gray, untidy,


s: Toothless, discarded, rural Don Juan. . . .


s: And I see now that the force that made him great


s: Saying we should be engaged before that;


s: And just with a distant clasp of the hand


s: She bade me good-night, as I brought her home


s: No sooner did my departing footsteps die away


s: Stole in at her window, or took her riding


s: And I put all the money I got from my father's estate


s: Into the canning factory, to get the job


s: And then I knew I was one of Life's fools,


s: Whom only death would treat as the equal


s: Of other men, making me feel like a man.


s: And the villagers thought I died of eating watermelon.


s: I slipped behind the prescription partition


s: From the bottle marked "Spiritus frumenti."


s: Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada,


s: I entered the cage and began to beat Brutus


s: And, by working my wife, my two sons and two daughters


s: I bustled through the years with axe and plow,


s: Toiling, denying myself, my wife, my sons, my daughters.


s: That I died from smoking Red Eagle cigars.


s: During the scorching hours of harvest time


s: Brought me here ere I had reached my sixtieth year.


s: Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.


s: Or a meadow to walk through to the river?


s: The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands


s: Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.


s: Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;


s: With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos


s: And the creak of a wind-mill--only these?


s: And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,


s: And before I grew up and knew what it meant


s: And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,


s: Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.


s: But the man who married me, a widower of thirty-five,


s: And the village agreed that I was not really a virgin.


s: HERBERT broke our engagement of eight years


s: When Annabelle returned to the village From the


s: It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow--


s: Who knows? -- filling my life with healing fragrance.


s: I blinded its eyes, and it became hatred--


s: Do not let the will play gardener to your soul


s: ALL your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me


s: Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness


s: Of spirit and contempt of your soul's rights


s: Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.


s: You really grew to hate me for love of me,


s: To solve your life for you, and would not.


s: My happiness would I not have clung to you?


s: That one can be happy only where two are;


s: A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.


s: For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;


s: Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;


s: Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.


s: Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.


s: And now I know that we must lift the sail


s: To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,


s: It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.


s: That Jenny had loved me to death, with malice of heart.


s: For I was seventy, she was thirty--five,


s: And I wore myself to a shadow trying to husband


s: Jenny, rosy Jenny full of the ardor of life.


s: Gave her no delight at all, in very truth,


s: But ever and anon she spoke of the giant strength


s: Of Willard Shafer, and of his wonderful feat


s: Of lifting a traction engine out of the ditch


s: So Jenny inherited my fortune and married Willard--


s: That mount of brawn! That clownish soul!


s: You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps,


s: In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub.


s: You are submerged in the tub of yourself--


s: IF YOU in the village think that my work was a good one,


s: Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards,


s: And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett,


s: In many a crusade to purge the people of sin;


s: Why do you let the milliner's daughter Dora,


s: And the worthless son of Benjamin Pantier


s: Nightly make my grave their unholy pillow?


s: WHEN Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me


s: I went to Springfield. There I met a lush,


s: Whose father just deceased left him a fortune.


s: A year passed and one day they found him dead.


s: That made me rich. I moved on to Chicago.


s: After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain.


s: I moved on to New York. A gray-haired magnate


s: He died one night right in my arms, you know.


s: (I saw his purple face for years thereafter. )


s: I moved on, This time to Paris. I was now a woman,


s: Insidious, subtle, versed in the world and rich.


s: My sweet apartment near the Champs Elysees


s: Became a center for all sorts of people,


s: Musicians, poets, dandies, artists, nobles,


s: Where we spoke French and German, Italian, English.


s: We went to Rome. He poisoned me, I think.


s: The sea where young Columbus dreamed new worlds,


s: See what they chiseled: "Contessa Navigato


s: If all of the children, born here in Spoon River


s: And the fathers and mothers had been given their freedom


s: To live and enjoy, change mates if they wished,


s: If with some one with whom you have known passion


s: TAKE note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions


s: Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain--


s: Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred


s: But to destroy, and not preserve, my memory.


s: I in life was the Circuit judge, a maker of notches,


s: Deciding cases on the points the lawyers scored,


s: O wind and rain, leave my head-stone alone


s: For worse than the anger of the wronged,


s: Was to lie speechless, yet with vision clear,


s: Seeing that even Hod Putt, the murderer,


s: I HAD fiddled all day at the county fair.


s: But driving home "Butch" Weldy and Jack McGuire,


s: Who were roaring full, made me fiddle and fiddle


s: To the song of Susie Skinner, while whipping the horses


s: Till they ran away. Blind as I was, I tried to get out


s: And was caught in the wheels and killed.


s: And all we fiddlers, from highest to lowest,


s: And published a novel before I was twenty-five.


s: I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art;


s: And later became president of the bank--


s: Meanwhile friend of the great, and lover of letters,


s: And host to Matthew Arnold and to Emerson.


s: How great it is to write the single line:


s: "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!"


s: WELL, don't you see this was the way of it:


s: We bought the farm with what he inherited,


s: And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning


s: His fathers mind against the rest of them.


s: And we never had any peace with our treasure.


s: The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed.


s: And he grew silent and was worried all the time.


s: Then some of the neighbors refused to speak to us,


s: And took sides with his brothers and sisters.


s: And I had no place to turn, as one may say to himself,


s: "No matter, So and so is my friend, or I can shake this off


s: Then the dreadfulest smells infested the rooms.


s: So I set fire to the beds and the old witch-house


s: As I danced in the yard with waving arms,


s: (After listening to the story of the buggy ride,


s: The first thing I saw, right there by the steps,


s: Where the boys had hacked for angle worms,


s: And just as I entered there was my wife,


s: She started the talk of the mortgaged farm,


s: l, THE scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker,


s: Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden,


s: Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes,


s: And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow:


s: Steel forceps fumbled by a doctor's hand


s: Against my boy's head as he entered life


s: That's how the world of those whose minds are sick


s: Became my work in life, and all my world.


s: Poor ruined boy! You were, at last, the potter


s: THEY first charged me with disorderly conduct,


s: Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard.


s: I said God lied to Adam, and destined him


s: Ignorant that there is evil in the world as well as good.


s: And when Adam outwitted God by eating the apple


s: God drove him out of Eden to keep him from taking


s: Here's what God Himself says about it in the book of Genesis:


s: Is become as one of us" (a little envy, you see),


s: "To know good and evil" (The all-is-good lie exposed):


s: "And now lest he put forth his hand and take


s: Also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever:


s: Not drink--For scarlet-fever left my heart diseased.


s: Soothed by a secret none but Mary knows:


s: Catalpa trees, and arbors sweet with vines--


s: I could have finished my flying machine,


s: And the upper courts, to beat the claims


s: And German father, a most learned professor,


s: Became a dancer, known as Russian Sonia,


s: All up and down the boulevards of Paris,


s: Mistress betimes of sundry dukes and counts,


s: At forty years, passe, I sought New York


s: Red-faced and hale, though turned his sixtieth year,


s: He brought me to Spoon River and we lived here


s: For twenty years--they thought that we were married


s: This oak tree near me is the favorite haunt


s: Of blue jays chattering, chattering all the day.


s: And why not? for my very dust is laughing


s: For thinking of the humorous thing called life.


s: Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with my life--


s: Certainly I should have escaped this place.


s: But as it was burned as well, they mistook me


s: For John Allen who was sent to the Hebrew Cemetery


s: It was bad enough to run a clothing store in this town,


s: Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel--


s: Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens--


s: But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof.


s: Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,


s: Ballades by the score with the same old thought:


s: The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;


s: Woodlands, meadows, streams and rivers--


s: ALMOST the shell of a woman after the surgeon's knife


s: And almost a year to creep back into strength,


s: For such sorrow was ours--the beginning of gray in your hair.


s: And what did we talk of?-- sky and water,


s: To imagine and live a remembered rapture!


s: Then my spirit drooped as the night came on,


s: And you left me alone in my room for a while,


s: As you did when I was a bride, poor heart.


s: And I looked in the mirror and something said:


s: "One should be all dead when one is half-dead--"


s: Nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love."


s: And I did it looking there in the mirror--


s: REVEREND WILEY advised me not to divorce him


s: But two of the children thought he was right,


s: And two of the children thought I was right.


s: And the two who sided with him blamed me,


s: And the two who sided with me blamed him,


s: And they grieved for the one they sided with.


s: And all were torn with the guilt of judging,


s: And tortured in soul because they could not admire


s: Now every gardener knows that plants grown in cellars


s: Or under stones are twisted and yellow and weak.


s: Yet preachers and judges advise the raising of souls


s: Where there is no sunlight, but only twilight,


s: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.


s: With the fall of the bank--he was only cashier.


s: The wreck was due to the president, Thomas Rhodes,


s: And all through the wisdom of Pope, the poet:


s: "Act well your part, there all the honor lies."


s: Shines brighter in the memory of the world,


s: Look how I saved the Blisses from divorce,


s: And kept the children free from that disgrace,


s: Happy themselves, a credit to the village.


s: THIS I saw with my own eyes: A cliff--swallow


s: Made her nest in a hole of the high clay-bank


s: Then the mother swallow with swift flutterings


s: Blinding him with the beat of her wings,


s: Until he, wriggling and rearing his head,


s: As for myself I overcame my lower nature


s: Only to be destroyed by my brother's ambition.


s: To selling my household effects at auction


s: To get something which had belonged to me


s: Did you know it contained the manuscripts


s: MY valiant fight! For I call it valiant,


s: With my father's beliefs from old Virginia:


s: New England, Republicans, Calvinists, merchants, bankers,


s: Stealing odd pleasures that cost me prestige,


s: Foe of the church with its charnel dankness,


s: Friend of the human touch of the tavern;


s: Had wound their lives in stranger gardens--


s: That no one would know of the fight I made.


s: But I know of a fate more trying than that:


s: It is to be a failure while your children are successes.


s: And thus to win my children's admiration,


s: Spending my accumulations to win-- and lost.


s: That fall my daughter received first prize in


s: Paris For her picture, entitled, "The Old Mill"--


s: (It was of the water mill before Henry Wilkin put in steam.)


s: The feeling that I was not worthy of her finished me.


s: And wonderful children, bringing him honor


s: If even one of my boys could have run a news-stand,


s: Or one of my girls could have married a decent man,


s: And jumped into bed with clothes all wet,


s: In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop


s: Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off


s: If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.


s: For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,


s: The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs,


s: Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,


s: And no children shall worship at my grave.


s: The father of many children, born of a noble mother,


s: In the great mansion--house, at the edge of town.


s: I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford,


s: The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors--


s: The years went on. I sent the girls to Europe;


s: I gave the boys money to start in business.


s: They were strong children, promising as apples


s: Harry killed himself after a debauch, Susan was divorced--


s: I sat under my cedar tree. Paul was invalided from over study,


s: Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man--


s: All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life--


s: My mate, the mother of them, was taken--


s: O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep.


s: When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul


s: Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my father,


s: And to turn my sorrow into a supremer self.


s: But there was my father with his sorrows,


s: A picture that sank into my heart at last


s: Stole into my life somehow, and won me away.


s: Then after some years whom should I meet


s: Of the free love, Fourierist gardens that flourished


s: And she turned to me for strength and solace.


s: One takes in one's arms, and all at once


s: It slimes your face with its running nose,


s: And there you stand bleeding and smelling to heaven


s: A STEPMOTHER drove me from home, embittering me.


s: A squaw-man, a flaneur and dilettante took my virtue.


s: For years I was his mistress--no one knew.


s: With which I moved with the bluffs, like a flea on a dog.


s: "Shameful word, soiling our beautiful love!"


s: But my anger coiled, preparing its fangs.


s: And she saw a chance for a poisonous thrust:


s: I must complain to the wife of Daniel's pursuit!


s: But before I did that I begged him to fly to London with me.


s: "Why not stay in the city just as we have?" he asked.


s: Then I turned submarine and revenged his repulse


s: Then up to the surface, Bearing the letter that Daniel wrote me


s: To prove my honor was all intact, showing it to his wife,


s: And navigators into realms intellectual,


s: You sailors through heights imaginative,


s: Blown about by erratic currents, tumbling into air pockets,


s: To keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms.


s: Are self-contained, compact, harmonized,


s: From trying to put my mind in the camera


s: Then when he was ready he said "all right."


s: And I yelled "overruled" and his eye turned up.


s: And I caught him just as he used to look


s: I got at the thing that divides the race between men who are


s: "There is a fountain filled with blood"--


s: (Like Rile Potter used to sing it over at Concord).


s: For cards, or for Rev. Peet's lecture on the holy land;


s: For skipping the light fantastic, or passing the plate;


s: For Pinafore, or a Sunday school cantata;


s: And asked them to make me take Dom Pedro


s: From the barn of Wash McNeely, there at the edge of town,


s: On the ground that it corrupted public morals.


s: Well, Ben Pantier and Fiddler Jones saved the day--


s: I GREW spiritually fat living off the souls of men.


s: I wounded its pride and devoured its strength.


s: The shelters of friendship knew my cunning


s: For where I could steal a friend I did so.


s: Just to assert and prove my superior strength,


s: The keen exhilaration of soul gymnastics.


s: Devouring souls, I should have lived forever.


s: But their undigested remains bred in me a deadly nephritis,


s: With fear, restlessness, sinking spirits,


s: And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene's.


s: Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat,


s: And I cried for what would become of me.


s: And cried and cried as my secret began to show.


s: One day Mrs. Greene said she understood,


s: So she hid in the house and sent out rumors,


s: And all went well and the child was born--


s: Later I married Gus Wertman, and years passed.


s: But-- at political rallies when sitters-by thought I was crying


s: I WAS the only child of Frances Harris of Virginia


s: Judge, member of Congress, leader in the State.


s: It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew.


s: In youth my mind was just a mirror In a rapidly flying car,


s: Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.


s: Great scratches were made on the mirror,


s: For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,


s: The mind sees the world as a thing apart,


s: And the soul makes the world at one with itself.


s: Roped out to grass, and free you know as far


s: One day while arguing so, watching the cow


s: Pull at the rope to get beyond the circle


s: Out came the stake, and tossing up her head,


s: "What's that, free-will or what?" said Ernest, running.


s: I fell just as she gored me to my death.


s: NOT character, not fortitude, not patience


s: Were mine, the which the village thought I had


s: In bearing with my wife, while preaching on,


s: I loathed her as a termagant, as a wanton.


s: Therefore to do God's work and have it crop,


s: Yet I tried lecturing, ran for the legislature,


s: Canvassed for books, with just the thought in mind:


s: The secret of the earth-- layers of rock.


s: The secret of the soil-- to receive seed.


s: My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find.


s: I WAS crushed between Altgeld and Armour.


s: I lost many friends, much time and money


s: Denounced as the candidate of gamblers and anarchists.


s: Then Armour started to ship dressed meat to Spoon River,


s: Forcing me to shut down my slaughter-house


s: The new forces of Altgeld and Armour caught me


s: At the same time. I thought it due me, to recoup the money I lost


s: For the Governor to appoint me Canal Commissioner.


s: Instead he appointed Whedon of the Spoon River Argus,


s: So I ran for the legislature and was elected.


s: I said to hell with principle and sold my vote


s: On Charles T. Yerkes' street-car franchise.


s: Of course I was one of the fellows they caught.


s: Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame,


s: But why will you never see that love of women,


s: Are the stimulants by which the soul, hungering for divinity,


s: YES, here I lie close to a stunted rose bush


s: Yet I know that I vanquished your spirit;


s: And I know that lying here far from you,


s: I am really the unconquerable power over your life


s: That l, who inherited riches and was to the manor born,


s: As a water carrier to the section hands,


s: Then becoming a section hand when he was grown,


s: Afterwards foreman of the gang, until he rose


s: YE aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown


s: Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.


s: Wandering with gun in hand through the forest


s: Of a dead tree. He fell with guttural cry


s: Where he lived many days cawing angrily at me


s: IN youth my wings were strong and tireless,


s: But my weary wings could not follow my vision--


s: The understanding of many personalities,


s: The power to interpret glances, silences,


s: The pauses in momentous transformations,


s: So that you feel able at times to hold the world


s: Then, if, by the crowding of so many powers


s: The evil of the world is lighted up and made clear--


s: Be thankful if in that hour of supreme vision


s: And I pity you still at the loom of life,


s: And lovingly watching the work of your hands,


s: If you reach the day of hate, of terrible truth.


s: For the cloth of life is woven, you know,


s: And you weave high-hearted, singing, singing,


s: You guard the threads of love and friendship


s: You have woven a moon-white strip of cloth,


s: You laugh in your strength, for Hope overlays it


s: THE press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked,


s: "l saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes


s: Standing on the steps of a marble temple.


s: Great multitudes passed in front of her,


s: Sometimes striking a child, again a laborer,


s: Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed


s: By those who dodged the strokes of the sword.


s: A man in a black gown read from a manuscript:


s: Leaped to her side and snatched away the bandage.


s: The eye-balls were seared with a milky mucus;


s: But the multitude saw why she wore the bandage."


s: To be able to see every side of every question;


s: To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long;


s: To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose,


s: To use great feelings and passions of the human family


s: Your eight-page paper-- behind which you huddle,


s: Bawling through the megaphone of big type:


s: Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief,


s: Crushing reputations, or bodies, if need be,


s: To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization,


s: As a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track


s: Then to lie here close by the river over the place


s: Where the sewage flows from the village,


s: And the empty cans and garbage are dumped,


s: RHODES, slave! Selling shoes and gingham,


s: Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long


s: For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days


s: Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir", and "Thank you"


s: A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.


s: Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial."


s: And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listen


s: To the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a year


s: So while I was tying my neck-tie that morning


s: My hair all gray, my face like a sodden pie.


s: So I cursed and cursed: You damned old thing


s: Thought I was having a fight with some one,


s: And looked through the transom just in time


s: Put me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month,


s: And I told my wife and children that night.


s: The blankets I took and sold on the side


s: For money to pay a doctor's bill for my little girl.


s: And promised me mercy for my family's sake


s: And begged him to keep it out of the papers,


s: That night at home the constable took me


s: Oh! well, you know how the children cried,


s: VEGETARIAN, non--resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian;


s: Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll.


s: Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan.


s: Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain,


s: Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing for laughter;


s: With heart cored out by the worm of theatric despair.


s: Wearing the coat of indifference to hide the shame of defeat;


s: A sort of Brand in a birth of half-and-half.


s: What other thing could happen when I defended


s: The patriot scamps who burned the court house


s: The card--board mask of my life with a spear of light,


s: What could I do but slink away, like the beast of myself


s: Which I raised from a whelp, to a corner and growl?


s: The pyramid of my life was nought but a dune,


s: Barren and formless, spoiled at last by the storm.


s: That it wrecked itself, and wrecked the grinder


s: Evolve from his brain a spiritual life--


s: The very same brain with which the ape and wolf


s: Get food and shelter and procreate themselves.


s: In a world where she gives him nothing to do


s: After all-- (though the strength of his soul goes round


s: To gear itself to the mills of the gods)--


s: But get food and shelter and procreate himself!


s: I wrecked my father's bank with my loans


s: Who couldn't margin the deal in his name


s: And while George Reece was serving his term


s: It's deathly to sicken of wine and women


s: But suppose your head is gray, and bowed


s: And a knock is heard, and you know it's the knock


s: And you look up, and there's your Theft,


s: And your heart skipped beats to say to you:


s: IT was just like everything else in life:


s: Why, there was the time I earned the money


s: Thus when I got the water-tower cleaned,


s: Over the smooth steel lips of the top of the tower--


s: But they slipped from the treacherous slime,


s: I WAS sick, but more than that, I was mad


s: At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life.


s: So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria:


s: "l am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River,


s: And the papers that said he killed himself


s: In his home while cleaning a hunting gun--


s: It was nine o'clock, I was trying to get home.


s: Then I reeled through a gate and into a yard,


s: (I thought it was his house and he would show me the way home. )


s: But who should step out but A. D. Blood,


s: In his night shirt, waving a stick of wood,


s: Taking the blows from the stick in his hand


s: In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked.


s: Which is the way of Nature--all but one.


s: The boy, who was the baby, stayed at home,


s: And he quarreled with me about the business,


s: And his wife said I was a hindrance to it;


s: With them to her girlhood home in Missouri.


s: And so much of my fortune was gone at last,


s: Though I made the will just as he drew it,


s: Oh! how she loved me I never had a chance to escape


s: But then after we were married I thought


s: She might prove her mortality and let me out,


s: Or she might divorce me. But few die, none resign.


s: Then I ran away and was gone a year on a lark.


s: But she never complained. She said all would be well


s: I told her that while taking a row in a boat


s: I had been captured near Van Buren Street


s: And kept in chains, so I could not write her.


s: She cried and kissed me, and said it was cruel,


s: Outrageous, inhuman! I then concluded our marriage


s: When he came home he told me the silly story


s: Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan


s: And kept in chains so he could not write me.


s: I pretended to believe it, though I knew very well


s: The milliner, Mrs. Williams, now and then


s: When she went to the city to buy goods, as she said.


s: By the scheme of a husband who had merely grown tired


s: And he drew six dollars a month as a pension,


s: And stood on the corner talking politics,


s: From their curtains, counterpanes, shirts and skirts.


s: For things that are new grow old at length,


s: They're replaced with better or none at all:


s: And there are colors that run in spite of you,


s: Blamed though you are for spoiling a dress.


s: Handkerchiefs, napery, have their secrets--


s: The laundress, Life, knows all about it.


s: Saw a dead face without thinking it looked


s: Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River,


s: Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken,


s: The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt,


s: To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds--


s: Sunk here to the dust of the justice court,


s: A picker of rags in the rubbage of spites and wrongs,--


s: Spouting to gaping yokels pages of verse,


s: Or raising a laugh with a flash of filthy wit


s: When they bought the drinks to kindle my dying mind.


s: With her cold white bosom, treasonous, pure and hard,


s: Relentless to the last, when the touch of her hand,


s: At any time, might have cured me of the typhus,


s: Caught in the jungle of life where many are lost.


s: And only to think that my soul could not react,


s: Like Byron's did, in song, in something noble,


s: But turned on itself like a tortured snake-- judge me this way,


s: But just as the shot rang out, he soared


s: Up and up through the splinters of golden light,


s: Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled,


s: With some of the down of him floating near,


s: Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump,


s: And the quail lying close to the rotten roots.


s: But something pricked and stung and numbed it.


s: And then, in a second, I spied the rattler--


s: The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him,


s: Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves.


s: I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled


s: I HAVE two monuments besides this granite obelisk:


s: With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate.


s: Where the railroad keeps a switching yard,


s: With whistling engines and crunching wheels


s: And smoke and soot thrown over the city,


s: And the crash of cars along the boulevard,--


s: And the lure of the thing was to be at rest


s: And to give my daughters gentle breeding,


s: But, you see, though I had the mansion house


s: And traveling passes and local distinction,


s: I could hear the whispers, whispers, whispers,


s: Wherever I went, and my daughters grew up


s: With a look as if some one were about to strike them;


s: And what was the whole of the business worth?


s: Reared in the mansion there on the hill,


s: With its spires, bay--windows, and roof of slate.


s: How proud of father's rise in the world!


s: For father's fortune was little beside it;


s: And when my husband found he had married


s: And called the house a fraud on the world,


s: A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopes


s: Should get enough from the people's betrayal


s: To Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang.


s: Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden.


s: Who spent your talents rallying noble reasons


s: Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar


s: How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you,


s: And as a wry-faced ascetic frowning upon Yorkshire pudding,


s: Roast beef and ale and good will and rosy cheer--


s: Things you never saw in a grog-shop in your life?


s: How did you feel after I was dead and gone,


s: And your goddess, Liberty, unmasked as a strumpet,


s: Did it occur to you that personal liberty


s: And little engines with tracks to run on


s: I played the cornet and painted pictures,


s: Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking,--


s: Although by lamp-light, for thirty years,


s: And if you lose, you can squeal as you will;


s: He makes the percentage hard to conquer;


s: He stacks the cards to catch your weakness


s: Get out of the room when your time is up.


s: IF the learned Supreme Court of Illinois


s: It would be the greatest court in the world.


s: A jury, of neighbors mostly, with "Butch" Weldy


s: As foreman, found me guilty in ten minutes


s: Richard Bandle and I had trouble over a fence


s: As to whether Ipava was a finer town than Table Grove.


s: I awoke one morning with the love of God


s: Brimming over my heart, so I went to see Richard


s: To settle the fence in the spirit of Jesus Christ.


s: I knocked on the door, and his wife opened;


s: I entered-- She slammed the door and began to scream,


s: "Take your hands off, you low down varlet!"


s: But neither the Supreme Court nor my wife


s: And bought John Alden's books with my earnings


s: But how could I do it with what I earned?


s: And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy


s: With her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowed


s: The soup ran out of her mouth like a duck--


s: I went in the house for a drink of water,


s: I poured the chloroform on a handkerchief


s: And held it to her nose till she died.--


s: Of the light of life, the sun of delight.


s: Of the heart of the flower, the central flame


s: Enter the banquet room with the thought;


s: Whether you're welcome--the feast is yours!


s: With a bashful "Thank you", when you're hungry.


s: Nor milk-white bosoms where you can rest;


s: You will die, no doubt, but die while living


s: READING in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys,


s: Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain


s: For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela,


s: The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne,


s: And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing


s: Till the gods made Philomela a nightingale,


s: Lute of the rising moon, and Procne a swallow


s: Oh livers and artists of Hellas centuries gone,


s: Sealing in little thuribles dreams and wisdom,


s: Incense beyond all price, forever fragrant,


s: A breath whereof makes clear the eyes of the soul


s: How I inhaled its sweetness here in Spoon River!


s: The thurible opening when I had lived and learned


s: How all of us kill the children of love, and all of us,


s: Knowing not what we do, devour their flesh;


s: And all of us change to singers, although it be


s: But once in our lives, or change--alas!--to swallows,


s: To twitter amid cold winds and falling leaves!


s: Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?


s: With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?


s: The weakest-link idea perhaps--but what was it?


s: Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd--


s: Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up--


s: Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall.


s: And compasses and mathematical instruments,


s: In irony of the under tenants, ignorance


s: Of determinants and the calculus of variations.


s: And anchors, for those who never sailed.


s: You left them open and stray goats entered your garden.


s: And an eye watching like one of the Arimaspi--


s: And angels blowing trumpets--you are heralded--


s: It is your horn and your angel and your family's estimate.


s: I know I stirred certain vibrations in Spoon River


s: Which are my true epitaph, more lasting than stone.


s: Souls that stake their all on the truth,


s: And rallied my followers to his standard,


s: Which closed on my heels just as I entered,


s: And out in the cold stood all my followers:


s: Souls that staked their all on the truth,


s: But just as you'd think he couldn't lose,


s: And I would arise at midnight and go to the shop,


s: Where belated travelers would hear me hammering


s: And often I wondered who would go with me


s: To the distant land, our names the theme


s: For talk, in the same week, for I've observed


s: Chase Henry was paired with Edith Conant;


s: And Jonathan Somers with Willie Metcalf;


s: When he prayed to live longer than Editor Whedon,


s: I BOUGHT every kind of machine that's known--


s: Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers--


s: And all of them stood in the rain and sun,


s: And toward the last, when I thought it over,


s: And looked at one of the mills I bought--


s: Which I didn't have the slightest need of,


s: A fine machine, once brightly varnished,


s: And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.


s: I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.


s: When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries


s: In order to learn how to reform the world.


s: I traveled through many lands. I saw the ruins of Rome


s: And the ruins of Athens, And the ruins of Thebes.


s: And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.


s: There I was caught up by wings of flame,


s: To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.


s: And by and by, when I talked, they discovered


s: Then Jonathan Swift Somers challenged me to debate


s: And he won the debate by saying at last,


s: Please answer the question of Pontius Pilate:


s: I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship,


s: But standing for the rights of property and for order.


s: Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you


s: Against the evils of discontent and envy


s: And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union,


s: And to point to the peril of the Knights of Labor.


s: My success and my example are inevitable influences


s: In your young men and in generations to come,


s: In spite of attacks of newspapers like the Clarion;


s: Trusted by them and by you, Spoon River, equally


s: In spite of the whispers that I was a lobbyist.


s: Moving quietly through the world, rich and courted.


s: Dying at last, of course, but lying here


s: Under a stone with an open book carved upon it


s: And the words "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."


s: And now, you world-savers, who reaped nothing in life


s: And in death have neither stones nor epitaphs,


s: How do you like your silence from mouths stopped


s: I was your leader, friends of Spoon River,


s: Did you neglect the convention and caucus,


s: Of guarding and saving the people's cause?--


s: And cursed me, saying I had betrayed you,


s: In leaving the caucus room for a moment,


s: When the people's enemies, there assembled,


s: Waited and watched for a chance to destroy


s: Who stepped from the morning train in Spoon River.


s: All the houses stood before me with closed doors


s: And I walked past the old McNeely mansion,


s: A castle of stone 'mid walks and gardens


s: Dip from the sky, like the beam of a dredge,


s: And cut the house in two like a curtain.


s: He proved the link in the chain of title


s: Through a breach of promise suit--the scissors.


s: So, you see, the house, from the day I was born,


s: And managed for the good of inquiring minds,


s: Was sold at auction on the public square,


s: For those of you who could not see the virtue


s: Of knowing Volney's "Ruins" as well as Butler's "Analogy"


s: "What is the use of knowing the evil in the world?"


s: IT was only a little house of two rooms--


s: With scarce five acres of ground around it;


s: And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick


s: And proved to me that Christian Dallman,


s: For eleven dollars, at a sale for taxes,


s: While my father lay in his mortal illness.


s: A survey of the land showed clear as day


s: That Dallman's tax deed covered my ground


s: I did not know whether what they told me


s: And stand around the shop while I worked


s: And say "He was so kind," "He was so wonderful,"


s: "She was the sweetest woman," "He was a consistent Christian."


s: And I chiseled for them whatever they wished,


s: But later, as I lived among the people here,


s: Were the epitaphs that were ordered for them as they died.


s: But still I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel


s: And made myself party to the false chronicles


s: It was moon-light, and the earth sparkled


s: I carried a ladder to the landing of the stairs


s: And leaned it against the frame of the trap-door


s: And I crawled under the roof and amid the rafters


s: Came with a dozen buckets and began to pour water


s: On the glorious bon-fire, growing hotter


s: Higher and brighter, till the walls fell in


s: And the limestone columns where Lincoln stood


s: Crashed like trees when the woodman fells them .


s: There was a new court house with a dome.


s: Faintly hazed as from dust from the road.


s: And a wind sweeps through the pasture where I lie


s: For the thin moon will kindle herself ere long,


s: Then she will swing like a pendulum dial


s: That in the hall--way of the New Court House


s: And is it true that my successful labors


s: Not one stone would have been placed on another,


s: And the contributions out of my own pocket


s: To build the temple, are but memories among the people,


s: Gradually fading away, and soon to descend


s: That whoso enters the vineyard at the eleventh hour


s: And it is a law of the Kingdom of this World


s: THE white men played all sorts of jokes on me.


s: And put little ones on, while I was away


s: I hadn't seen aright the fish I had caught.


s: They got the ring master to let a tame leopard


s: And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling


s: Was fooled about fish and about leopards too,


s: And you didn't know any more than the horse-shoes did


s: First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon


s: Of independence, for reform, and was defeated.


s: To capture the standard of my old party--


s: Discredited and discarded, misanthropical,


s: I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River


s: And leave my place in life and my family;


s: But just as the midnight train pulled in,


s: Striking each other with fists that sounded


s: Now it seemed to me that Cully was winning,


s: And whining out "We're good friends, Mart,


s: But a terrible punch from Martin knocked him


s: And I lost my train and staid in Spoon River


s: And tying rags ,round your festering soul,


s: One more term, so as to round out a service


s: But my friends left me and joined my enemies,


s: I REACHED the highest place in Spoon River,


s: The face of my father, sitting speechless,


s: The path that leads to the grove of the Furies?


s: I followed the path and I tell you this:


s: On the way to the grove you'll pass the Fates,


s: The thread of revenge leap out of the shuttle


s: And the children of them and their children


s: WHY was I not devoured by self-contempt,


s: And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones?


s: And why, though I stood at Burchard's bar,


s: As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys


s: To buy the drinks, did the curse of drink


s: And why did I never kill a man Like Jack McGuire?


s: Where I chanced to see the book in a window,


s: And why did my soul respond to the book,


s: Twice I tried to join your honored body,


s: After that I grew beyond the need of you


s: It was too much for you, poor old heart,


s: I felt you growing slower until you stopped.


s: Did they bring his head on a platter to a dancer,


s: And there was an air of eternity about him,


s: Like the cold, clear light that rests at dawn


s: I seemed to be reaching the heights of art


s: And to breathe the air that the masters breathed


s: There was no culture, you know, in Spoon River


s: And I burned with shame and held my peace.


s: Birth in the world, with all of Spoon River


s: As I entered the front, and I saw him slink


s: But that day, walking near Fourth Bridge


s: And all I could say was, "Don't, Don't, Don't,"


s: Returning no word to the judge when he asked me


s: If I had aught to say against the sentence,


s: That a woman of thirty-five was at fault


s: When her lover of nineteen killed her husband?


s: Even though she had said to him over and over,


s: I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body:


s: And just as I feared, he killed my husband;


s: WHAT but the love of God could have softened


s: And made forgiving the people of Spoon River


s: Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt


s: When I returned from fourteen years in prison!


s: Oh, helping hands that in the church received me


s: And heard with tears my penitent confession,


s: Who took the sacrament of bread and wine!


s: Repent, ye living ones, and rest with Jesus.


s: O, child who died as you entered the world,


s: With a heart that beat when you lived with me,


s: The long, long way that begins with school days,


s: When little fingers blur under the tears


s: And the earliest wound, when a little mate


s: From the cup of Love, though you know it's poisoned;


s: To whom would your flower-face have been lifted?


s: And then your children--oh, what might they be?


s: WE stand about this place--we, the memories;


s: And shade our eyes because we dread to read:


s: And we--we, the memories, stand here for ourselves alone,


s: For no eye marks us, or would know why we are here.


s: Your husband is dead, your sister lives far away,


s: He has forgotten you, he scarcely leaves the house


s: Any more. No one remembers your exquisite face,


s: How you sang, even on the morning you were stricken,


s: With piercing sweetness, with thrilling sorrow,


s: Before the advent of the child which died with you.


s: It is all forgotten, save by us, the memories,


s: All is changed, save the river and the hill--


s: Only the burning sun and the quiet stars are the same.


s: And we--we, the memories, stand here in awe,


s: Our eyes closed with the weariness of tears--


s: Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,


s: Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision


s: Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us,


s: Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River


s: From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.


s: You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand


s: You were a part of and related to a great past,


s: And yet you were so close to many of us.


s: You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.


s: Some of us almost came to you, Father Malloy,


s: Seeing how your church had divined the heart,


s: NOT "a youth with hoary head and haggard eye",


s: And black hair! I had the face of a boy as long as I lived,


s: And for years a soul that was stiff and bent,


s: That the much-sought prize of eternal youth


s: Tell me how it is that on this hill-side


s: Which fronts the sun and the south-wind,


s: And this plant draws from the same air and soil


s: Sweet elixirs and colors and becomes arbutus?


s: You may blame Spoon River for what it is,


s: But whom do you blame for the will in you


s: That feeds itself and makes you dock-weed,


s: So as to make you jessamine or wistaria?


s: While I was born the whole of such hostile halves,


s: But each distinct, feebly soldered together.


s: Your devoted friendship and delicate ministrations


s: Afterward by gradually withdrawing my presence from you,


s: So that I might not be compelled to thank you,


s: And then with silence which followed upon


s: For though when our bodies rise from pain


s: A soul that's cured is a different matter,


s: The soft--toned words, the searching eyes,


s: Where a group of us were reading Spencer.


s: And thence to Chicago, and then to Spoon River,


s: Would be just alike, with a hammer to hit


s: All acting alike for themselves, and all


s: Which nothing could ever free from itself


s: Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique;


s: In everything a cog in the wheel of things--as--they-are:


s: I stood and hooked at the wrecked machine--


s: The wheels with blow-holes stopped with putty and painted;


s: And only the hopper for souls fit to be used again


s: When newspapers, judges and money-magicians


s: I was stripped to the bone, but I lay in the Rock of Ages,


s: Seeing now through the game, no longer a dupe,


s: And knowing "'the upright shall dwell in the land


s: But the years of the wicked shall be shortened."


s: I was not, after all, the particular care of God


s: Above the mists through which I had climbed,


s: And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent,


s: "The honor of the flag must be upheld," he said,


s: "Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs


s: And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he waved


s: And I went to the war in spite of my father,


s: And followed the flag till I saw it raised


s: By our camp in a rice field near Manila,


s: But there were flies and poisonous things;


s: And the smell of the trench just back of the tents


s: Where the soldiers went to empty themselves;


s: And beastly acts between ourselves or alone,


s: With bullying, hatred, degradation among us,


s: To the hour of the charge through the steaming swamp,


s: Till I fell with a scream, shot through the guts.


s: OH! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina


s: Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing,


s: One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing,


s: We built the school houses, built the bridges,


s: If Harry Wilmans who fought the Filipinos


s: Advancement in the world on coming home;


s: But these were things in ourselves, shining before us,


s: Like fire at earth's center making mountains,


s: Or pent up waters that cut them through.


s: That daughter Janet might repose in, reading


s: Knew aught save that it thrilled with life,


s: You were not wounded by the greatness of a dream,


s: Nor did you carry great wounds to your old age.


s: You did not starve, for the government fed you.


s: Which a poor alchemy had made from ideals.


s: Who surged forward, who were driven back and fell


s: Following the flag of the Kingdom of Heaven.


s: Around which you may walk by the use of foresight


s: Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men,


s: As one who in God-like fashion bends over an anthill,


s: Seeing how their difficulties could be avoided.


s: In the shape of your own image in the mirror;


s: Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth,


s: And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest,


s: And read the authentic message of his eyes.


s: WITH our hearts like drifting suns, had we but walked,


s: As often before, the April fields till star--light


s: Silkened over with viewless gauze the darkness


s: Under the cliff, our trysting place in the wood,


s: Where the brook turns! Had we but passed from wooing


s: Like notes of music that run together, into winning,


s: But to put back of us as a canticle ended


s: Where time was not, nor space, nor ourselves--


s: To leave these behind for a room with lamps:


s: And to stand with our Secret mocking itself,


s: And hiding itself amid flowers and mandolins,


s: Stared at by all between salad and coffee.


s: Not flaming with gifts and pledges heaped


s: And then, O night! deliberate! unlovely!


s: With all of our wooing blotted out by the winning,


s: In a chosen room in an hour that was known to all!


s: Next day he sat so listless, almost cold


s: So strangely changed, wondering why I wept,


s: Till a kind of sick despair and voluptuous madness


s: Waiting to be drawn once again Into creation's stream.


s: "With malice toward none, with charity for all.',


s: Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions,


s: I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,


s: Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation.


s: IN a lingering fever many visions come to you:


s: Set in a lawn, and by the lawn was the sea.


s: And in a chair sat a man in a dark cloak


s: Under a summer wind, and little Paul came


s: With clover blossoms to the window and smiled.


s: Then I said: "What is "divine despair" Alfred?"


s: "Have you read 'Tears, Idle Tears'?" he asked.


s: "Yes, but you do not there express divine despair."


s: "My poor friend," he answered, "that was why the despair


s: Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst,


s: Withered before your eyes, Spoon River--


s: Voiceless from chasteness of soul to ask you for love,


s: You who knew and saw me perish before you,


s: Like this geranium which someone has planted over me,


s: Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley,


s: My days of labor closed, sitting out life's decline,


s: As one who gazes in an enchantress' crystal globe,


s: As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream,


s: Move through the incredible sphere of time.


s: And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant


s: And throw himself over a deathless destiny,


s: Master of great armies, head of the republic,


s: Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song


s: At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires,


s: Where imperishable shields and swords were beaten out


s: To the place where his path comes up to the path


s: O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part


s: And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play,


s: As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood


s: When giant hands from the womb of the world


s: That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids,


s: From a far--off farm house, seen near the hills


s: Where the third generation lives, and the strong men


s: And the strong women are gone and forgotten.


s: And these grand--children and great grand-children


s: Truly did my camera record their faces, too,


s: Which labors and loves and suffers and sings


s: I WROTE him a letter asking him for old times, sake


s: Then I went to town and had James Garber,


s: Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter.


s: So I traveled all the way to Washington.


s: I was more than an hour finding the White House.


s: And when I found it they turned me away,


s: And all of us called him Abe, there in Menard."


s: As a last attempt I turned to a guard and said:


s: "Please say it's old Aunt Hannah Armstrong


s: From Illinois, come to see him about her sick boy


s: And wrote in his own hand Doug's discharge,


s: Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,


s: We were married and lived together for seventy years,


s: Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,


s: Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,


s: And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,


s: Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.


s: At ninety--six I had lived enough, that is all,


s: What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,


s: And queens, and nothing but storing honey--


s: (Material things as well as culture and wisdom)--


s: For the next generation, this generation never living,


s: Except as it swarms in the sun-light of youth,


s: Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered,


s: From the clover field, the delicate spoil.


s: Suppose all this, and suppose the truth:


s: As well as the urge from your spirit's excess--


s: Sure of immortal life, though you are in doubt,


s: NOT, where the stairway turns in the dark


s: A hooded figure, shriveled under a flowing cloak!


s: Staring out from a surface of cobweb gray!


s: When the roar of life in your ears begins


s: Where purple rag-weeds bloom along a straggling fence


s: And the field is gleaned, and the air is still


s: To see against the sun-light something black


s: That is the sign to eyes of second sight. . .


s: For the millions of children not yet born,


s: Are they not non-existent, or cells asleep


s: The field of unexplored intuition is yours.


s: But in any case why not plant willows for them,