Edgar Lee Masters

I spent my money trying to elect you Mayor
A. D. Blood.
I lavished my admiration upon you,
You were to my mind the almost perfect man.…

I leaned against the mantel, sick, sick,
Thinking of my failure, looking into the abysm,
Weak from the noon-day heat.
A church bell sounded mournfully far away,…

My name used to be in the papers daily
As having dined somewhere,
Or traveled somewhere,
Or rented a house in Paris,…

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

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

Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war
The day before Curl Trenary
Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett
For stealing hogs.…

I went up and down the streets
Here and there by day and night,
Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick.
Do you know why?…

Silent before the jury,
Returning no word to the judge when he asked me
If I had aught to say against the sentence,
Only shaking my head.…

YOUR attention, Thomas Rhodes, president of the bank;
Coolbaugh Wedon, editor of the Argus;
Rev. Peet, pastor of the leading church;
A.D. Blood, several times Mayor of Spoon River;…

Всегда видеть все стороны всяких вопросов;
Всегда быть на стороне всех, быть всем и ничем подолгу:
Извращать истину, оседлав ее, выгоды ради;
Играть на высоких стремлениях и на страстях человека…

The pine woods on the hill,
And the farmhouse miles away,
Showed clear as though behind a lens
Under a sky of peacock blue!…

Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,
The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M’Grew
Cried, ”There’s a ghost,” and I, ”It’s Delphic Apollo”;
And the son of the banker derided us, saying, ”It’s light…

I staggered on through darkness,
There was a hazy sky, a few stars
Which I followed as best I could.
It was nine o’clock, I was trying to get home.…

Doc Meyers said I had satyriasis,
And Doc Hill called it leucaemia --
But I know what brought me here:
I was sixty-four but strong as a man…

Why was I not devoured by self-contempt,
And rotted down by indifference
And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones?
Why, with all of my errant steps…

How many times, during the twenty years
I was your leader, friends of Spoon River,
Did you neglect the convention and caucus,
And leave the burden on my hands…

Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter and Spring,
After each other drifting, past my window drifting!
And I lay so many years watching them drift and counting
The years till a terror came in my heart at times,…

We quarreled that morning,
For he was sixty-five, and I was thirty,
And I was nervous and heavy with the child
Whose birth I dreaded.…

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,

Каждый раз, когда пресвитерианский колокол
Звонил один, я узнавал пресвитерианский колокол.
Но когда его звук смешивался
Со звуками колоколов методистского, баптистского,…

In my Spanish cloak,
And old slouch hat,
And overshoes of felt,
And Tyke, my faithful dog,…

”What will you do when you come to die,
If all your life long you have rejected Jesus,
And know as you lie there, He is not your friend?”
Over and over I said, I, the revivalist.…

Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree.
The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass,
The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls,
But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous…

I made two fights for the people.
First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon
Of independence, for reform, and was defeated.
Next I used my rebel strength…