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,

I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge
When I felt the bullet enter my heart I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
Instead of running away and joining the army,
Rather...

I was sixteen, and I had the most terrible dreams,
And specks before my eyes, and nervous weakness
And I couldn't remember the books I read,
Like Frank Drummer who memorized page after page

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,

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...

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

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

Have you seen walking through the village A man with downcast eyes and haggard face
That is my husband who, by secret cruelty never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty;
Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth,
And w...

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 ...

Passer-by, sin beyond any
Is the sin of blindness of souls to other souls
And joy beyond any joy is the
Of having the good in you seen, and seeing the