Edgar Lee Masters

Not, where the stairway turns in the dark,
A hooded figure, shriveled under a flowing cloak
Not yellow eyes in the room at night,
Staring out from a surface of cobweb gray

God
ask me not to record your wonders,
I admit the stars and the suns And the countless worlds
But I have measured their distances And weighed them and discovered their substances

I winged my bird,
Though he flew toward the setting sun;
But just as the shot rang out, he soared Up and up through the splinters of golden light,
Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled,

My father who owned the
And grew rich shoeing
Sent me to the University of Montreal
I learned nothing and returned home,

They have Chiseled on my stone the words: 'His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world,
This was a man
' Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric
My epita...

In my life I was the town drunkard;
When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground
The which rebounded to my good fortune
For the Protestants bought this lot,

The cooper should know about tubs
But I learned about life as well,
And you who loiter around these graves Think you know life
You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps,

She took my strength by minutes,
She took my life by hours,
She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world
The days went by like shadows,

I had no objection at
To selling my household effects at
On the village square
It gave my beloved flock the

Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist,
What will result from
Fluids or solids
And who can

Where are Elmer,
Herman,
Bert,
Tom, and Charley,

How does it happen, tell me,
That I who was the most erudite of lawyers,
Who knew Blackstone and Coke Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech The court-house ever heard, and wrote A brief that won the praise of Justice Breese— How ...