Chapter 3

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. You devoured my personality, And the idealism of my youth, And the strength of a high-souled fealty. And all my hopes for the world, And all my beliefs in Truth, Were smelted up in the blinding heat Of my devotion to you, And molded into your image. And then when I found what you were: That your soul was small And your words were false As your blue-white porcelain teeth, And your cuffs of celluloid, I hated the love I had for you, I hated myself, I hated you For my wasted soul, and wasted youth. And I say to all, beware of ideals, Beware of giving your love away To any man alive.

Dora Williams

When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me I went to Springfield. There I met a lush, Whose father just deceased left him a fortune. He married me when drunk. My life was wretched. A year passed and one day they found him dead. That made me rich. I moved on to Chicago. After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain. I moved on to New York. A gray-haired magnate Went mad about me—so another fortune. He died one night right in my arms, you know. (I saw his purple face for years thereafter. ) There was almost a scandal. I moved on, This time to Paris. I was now a woman, Insidious, subtle, versed in the world and rich. My sweet apartment near the Champs Elysees Became a center for all sorts of people, Musicians, poets, dandies, artists, nobles, Where we spoke French and German, Italian, English. I wed Count Navigato, native of Genoa. We went to Rome. He poisoned me, I think. Now in the Campo Santo overlooking The sea where young Columbus dreamed new worlds, See what they chiseled: “Contessa Navigato Implora eterna quiete.”

Mrs. Williams

I was the milliner Talked about, lied about, Mother of Dora, Whose strange disappearance Was charged to her rearing. My eye quick to beauty Saw much beside ribbons And buckles and feathers And leghorns and felts, To set off sweet faces, And dark hair and gold. One thing I will tell you And one I will ask: The stealers of husbands Wear powder and trinkets, And fashionable hats. Wives, wear them yourselves. Hats may make divorces— They also prevent them. Well now, let me ask you: If all of the children, born here in Spoon River Had been reared by the County, somewhere on a farm; And the fathers and mothers had been given their freedom To live and enjoy, change mates if they wished, Do you think that Spoon River Had been any the worse?

William and Emily

There is something about Death Like love itself! If with some one with whom you have known passion And the glow of youthful love, You also, after years of life Together, feel the sinking of the fire And thus fade away together, Gradually, faintly, delicately, As it were in each other’s arms, Passing from the familiar room— That is a power of unison between souls Like love itself!

The Circuit Judge

Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain— Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred Were marking scores against me, But to destroy, and not preserve, my memory. I in life was the Circuit Judge, a maker of notches, Deciding cases on the points the lawyers scored, Not on the right of the matter. O wind and rain, leave my head-stone alone For worse than the anger of the wronged, The curses of the poor, Was to lie speechless, yet with vision clear, Seeing that even Hod Putt, the murderer, Hanged by my sentence, Was innocent in soul compared with me.

Blind Jack

I had fiddled all day at the county fair. But driving home “Butch” Weldy and Jack McGuire, Who were roaring full, made me fiddle and fiddle To the song of _Susie Skinner_, while whipping the horses Till they ran away. Blind as I was, I tried to get out As the carriage fell in the ditch, And was caught in the wheels and killed. There’s a blind man here with a brow As big and white as a cloud. And all we fiddlers, from highest to lowest, Writers of music and tellers of stories Sit at his feet, And hear him sing of the fall of Troy.

John Horace Burleson

I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank— Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of the war. Meanwhile friend of the great, and lover of letters, And host to Matthew Arnold and to Emerson. An after dinner speaker, writing essays For local clubs. At last brought here— My boyhood home, you know— Not even a little tablet in Chicago To keep my name alive. How great it is to write the single line: “Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!“

Nancy Knapp

Well, don’t you see this was the way of it: We bought the farm with what he inherited, And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning His father’s mind against the rest of them. And we never had any peace with our treasure. The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed. And lightning struck the granary. So we mortgaged the farm to keep going. And he grew silent and was worried all the time. Then some of the neighbors refused to speak to us, And took sides with his brothers and sisters. And I had no place to turn, as one may say to himself, At an earlier time in life; “No matter, So and so is my friend, or I can shake this off With a little trip to Decatur.” Then the dreadfulest smells infested the rooms. So I set fire to the beds and the old witch-house Went up in a roar of flame, As I danced in the yard with waving arms, While he wept like a freezing steer.

Barry Holden

The very fall my sister Nancy Knapp Set fire to the house They were trying Dr. Duval For the murder of Zora Clemens, And I sat in the court two weeks Listening to every witness. It was clear he had got her in a family way; And to let the child be born Would not do. Well, how about me with eight children, And one coming, and the farm Mortgaged to Thomas Rhodes? And when I got home that night, (After listening to the story of the buggy ride, And the finding of Zora in the ditch,) The first thing I saw, right there by the steps, Where the boys had hacked for angle worms, Was the hatchet! And just as I entered there was my wife, Standing before me, big with child. She started the talk of the mortgaged farm, And I killed her.

State’s Attorney Fallas

I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker, Smiter with whips and swords; I, hater of the breakers of the law; I, legalist, inexorable and bitter, Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden, Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes, And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow: Steel forceps fumbled by a doctor’s hand Against my boy’s head as he entered life Made him an idiot. I turned to books of science To care for him. That’s how the world of those whose minds are sick Became my work in life, and all my world. Poor ruined boy! You were, at last, the potter And I and all my deeds of charity The vessels of your hand.

Wendell P. Bloyd

They first charged me with disorderly conduct, There being no statute on blasphemy. Later they locked me up as insane Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard. My offense was this: I said God lied to Adam, and destined him To lead the life of a fool, Ignorant that there is evil in the world as well as good. And when Adam outwitted God by eating the apple And saw through the lie, God drove him out of Eden to keep him from taking The fruit of immortal life. For Christ’s sake, you sensible people, Here’s what God Himself says about it in the book of Genesis: “And the Lord God said, behold the man Is become as one of us” (a little envy, you see), “To know good and evil” (The all-is-good lie exposed): “And now lest he put forth his hand and take Also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever: Therefore the Lord God sent Him forth from the garden of Eden.” (The reason I believe God crucified His Own Son To get out of the wretched tangle is, because it sounds just like Him. )

Francis Turner

I could not run or play In boyhood. In manhood I could only sip the cup, Not drink—For scarlet-fever left my heart diseased. Yet I lie here Soothed by a secret none but Mary knows: There is a garden of acacia, Catalpa trees, and arbors sweet with vines— There on that afternoon in June By Mary’s side— Kissing her with my soul upon my lips It suddenly took flight.

Franklin Jones

If I could have lived another year I could have finished my flying machine, And become rich and famous. Hence it is fitting the workman Who tried to chisel a dove for me Made it look more like a chicken. For what is it all but being hatched, And running about the yard, To the day of the block? Save that a man has an angel’s brain, And sees the ax from the first!

John M. Church

I was attorney for the “Q” And the Indemnity Company which insured The owners of the mine. I pulled the wires with judge and jury, And the upper courts, to beat the claims Of the crippled, the widow and orphan, And made a fortune thereat. The bar association sang my praises In a high-flown resolution. And the floral tributes were many— But the rats devoured my heart And a snake made a nest in my skull

Russian Sonia

I, born in Weimar Of a mother who was French And German father, a most learned professor, Orphaned at fourteen years, Became a dancer, known as Russian Sonia, All up and down the boulevards of Paris, Mistress betimes of sundry dukes and counts, And later of poor artists and of poets. At forty years, _passée_, I sought New York And met old Patrick Hummer on the boat, Red-faced and hale, though turned his sixtieth year, Returning after having sold a ship-load Of cattle in the German city, Hamburg. He brought me to Spoon River and we lived here For twenty years—they thought that we were married This oak tree near me is the favorite haunt Of blue jays chattering, chattering all the day. And why not? for my very dust is laughing For thinking of the humorous thing called life.

Isa Nutter

Doc Meyers said I had satyriasis, And Doc Hill called it leucæmia— But I know what brought me here: I was sixty-four but strong as a man Of thirty-five or forty. And it wasn’t writing a letter a day, And it wasn’t late hours seven nights a week, And it wasn’t the strain of thinking of Minnie, And it wasn’t fear or a jealous dread, Or the endless task of trying to fathom Her wonderful mind, or sympathy For the wretched life she led With her first and second husband— It was none of these that laid me low— But the clamor of daughters and threats of sons, And the sneers and curses of all my kin Right up to the day I sneaked to Peoria And married Minnie in spite of them— And why do you wonder my will was made For the best and purest of women?

Barney Hainsfeather

If the excursion train to Peoria Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with my life— Certainly I should have escaped this place. But as it was burned as well, they mistook me For John Allen who was sent to the Hebrew Cemetery At Chicago, And John for me, so I lie here. It was bad enough to run a clothing store in this town, But to be buried here—_ach!_

Petit, the Poet

Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel— Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens— But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof. Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus, Ballades by the score with the same old thought: The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished; And what is love but a rose that fades? Life all around me here in the village: Tragedy, comedy, valor and truth, Courage, constancy, heroism, failure— All in the loom, and oh what patterns! Woodlands, meadows, streams and rivers— Blind to all of it all my life long. Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus, Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics, While Homer and Whitman roared in the pines?

Pauline Barrett

Almost the shell of a woman after the surgeon’s knife And almost a year to creep back into strength, Till the dawn of our wedding decennial Found me my seeming self again. We walked the forest together, By a path of soundless moss and turf. But I could not look in your eyes, And you could not look in my eyes, For such sorrow was ours—the beginning of gray in your hair. And I but a shell of myself. And what did we talk of?—sky and water, Anything, ’most, to hide our thoughts. And then your gift of wild roses, Set on the table to grace our dinner. Poor heart, how bravely you struggled To imagine and live a remembered rapture! Then my spirit drooped as the night came on, And you left me alone in my room for a while, As you did when I was a bride, poor heart. And I looked in the mirror and something said: “One should be all dead when one is half-dead—” Nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love.” And I did it looking there in the mirror— Dear, have you ever understood?

Mrs. Charles Bliss

Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him For the sake of the children, And Judge Somers advised him the same. So we stuck to the end of the path. But two of the children thought he was right, And two of the children thought I was right. And the two who sided with him blamed me, And the two who sided with me blamed him, And they grieved for the one they sided with. And all were torn with the guilt of judging, And tortured in soul because they could not admire Equally him and me. Now every gardener knows that plants grown in cellars Or under stones are twisted and yellow and weak. And no mother would let her baby suck Diseased milk from her breast. Yet preachers and judges advise the raising of souls Where there is no sunlight, but only twilight, No warmth, but only dampness and cold— Preachers and judges!

Mrs. George Reece

To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty. It may serve a turn in your life. My husband had nothing to do With the fall of the bank—he was only cashier. The wreck was due to the president, Thomas Rhodes, And his vain, unscrupulous son. Yet my husband was sent to prison, And I was left with the children, To feed and clothe and school them. And I did it, and sent them forth Into the world all clean and strong, And all through the wisdom of Pope, the poet: “Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”

Rev. Lemuel Wiley

I preached four thousand sermons, I conducted forty revivals, And baptized many converts. Yet no deed of mine Shines brighter in the memory of the world, And none is treasured more by me: Look how I saved the Blisses from divorce, And kept the children free from that disgrace, To grow up into moral men and women, Happy themselves, a credit to the village.

Thomas Ross, Jr.

This I saw with my own eyes: A cliff—swallow Made her nest in a hole of the high clay-bank There near Miller’s Ford. But no sooner were the young hatched Than a snake crawled up to the nest To devour the brood. Then the mother swallow with swift flutterings And shrill cries Fought at the snake, Blinding him with the beat of her wings, Until he, wriggling and rearing his head, Fell backward down the bank Into Spoon River and was drowned. Scarcely an hour passed Until a shrike Impaled the mother swallow on a thorn. As for myself I overcame my lower nature Only to be destroyed by my brother’s ambition.

Rev. Abner Peet

I had no objection at all To selling my household effects at auction On the village square. It gave my beloved flock the chance To get something which had belonged to me For a memorial. But that trunk which was struck off To Burchard, the grog-keeper! Did you know it contained the manuscripts Of a lifetime of sermons? And he burned them as waste paper.

Jefferson Howard

My valiant fight! For I call it valiant, With my father’s beliefs from old Virginia: Hating slavery, but no less war. I, full of spirit, audacity, courage Thrown into life here in Spoon River, With its dominant forces drawn from New England, Republicans, Calvinists, merchants, bankers, Hating me, yet fearing my arm. With wife and children heavy to carry— Yet fruits of my very zest of life. Stealing odd pleasures that cost me prestige, And reaping evils I had not sown; Foe of the church with its charnel dankness, Friend of the human touch of the tavern; Tangled with fates all alien to me, Deserted by hands I called my own. Then just as I felt my giant strength Short of breath, behold my children Had wound their lives in stranger gardens— And I stood alone, as I started alone My valiant life! I died on my feet, Facing the silence—facing the prospect That no one would know of the fight I made.

Judge Selah Lively

Suppose you stood just five feet two, And had worked your way as a grocery clerk, Studying law by candle light Until you became an attorney at law? And then suppose through your diligence, And regular church attendance, You became attorney for Thomas Rhodes, Collecting notes and mortgages, And representing all the widows In the Probate Court? And through it all They jeered at your size, and laughed at your clothes And your polished boots? And then suppose You became the County Judge? And Jefferson Howard and Kinsey Keene, And Harmon Whitney, and all the giants Who had sneered at you, were forced to stand Before the bar and say “Your Honor”— Well, don’t you think it was natural That I made it hard for them?

Albert Schirding

Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one Because his children were all failures. But I know of a fate more trying than that: It is to be a failure while your children are successes. For I raised a brood of eagles Who flew away at last, leaving me A crow on the abandoned bough. Then, with the ambition to prefix Honorable to my name, And thus to win my children’s admiration, I ran for County Superintendent of Schools, Spending my accumulations to win—and lost. That fall my daughter received first prize in Paris For her picture, entitled, “The Old Mill”— (It was of the water mill before Henry Wilkin put in steam.) The feeling that I was not worthy of her finished me.

Jonas Keene

Why did Albert Schirding kill himself Trying to be County Superintendent of Schools, Blest as he was with the means of life And wonderful children, bringing him honor Ere he was sixty? If even one of my boys could have run a news-stand, Or one of my girls could have married a decent man, I should not have walked in the rain And jumped into bed with clothes all wet, Refusing medical aid.

Eugenia Todd

Have any of you, passers-by, Had an old tooth that was an unceasing discomfort? Or a pain in the side that never quite left you? Or a malignant growth that grew with time? So that even in profoundest slumber There was shadowy consciousness or the phantom of thought Of the tooth, the side, the growth? Even so thwarted love, or defeated ambition, Or a blunder in life which mixed your life Hopelessly to the end, Will like a tooth, or a pain in the side, Float through your dreams in the final sleep Till perfect freedom from the earth-sphere Comes to you as one who wakes Healed and glad in the morning!

Yee Bow

They got me into the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, The minister’s son, caved my ribs into my lungs, With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, And no children shall worship at my grave.

Washington McNeely

Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion—house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors— Resting under my cedar tree at evening. The years went on. I sent the girls to Europe; I dowered them when married. I gave the boys money to start in business. They were strong children, promising as apples Before the bitten places show. But John fled the country in disgrace. Jenny died in child-birth— I sat under my cedar tree. Harry killed himself after a debauch, Susan was divorced— I sat under my cedar tree. Paul was invalided from over study, Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man— I sat under my cedar tree. All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life— I sat under my cedar tree. My mate, the mother of them, was taken— I sat under my cedar tree, Till ninety years were tolled. O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep.

Paul McNeely

Dear Jane! dear winsome Jane! How you stole in the room (where I lay so ill) In your nurse’s cap and linen cuffs, And took my hand and said with a smile: “You are not so ill—you’ll soon be well.” And how the liquid thought of your eyes Sank in my eyes like dew that slips Into the heart of a flower. Dear Jane! the whole McNeely fortune Could not have bought your care of me, By day and night, and night and day; Nor paid for your smile, nor the warmth of your soul, In your little hands laid on my brow. Jane, till the flame of life went out In the dark above the disk of night I longed and hoped to be well again To pillow my head on your little breasts, And hold you fast in a clasp of love— Did my father provide for you when he died, Jane, dear Jane?

Mary McNeely

Passer-by, To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one. When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul Then you have lost your soul. It is written: “l have a friend, But my sorrow has no friend.” Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my father, Trying to get myself back, And to turn my sorrow into a supremer self. But there was my father with his sorrows, Sitting under the cedar tree, A picture that sank into my heart at last Bringing infinite repose. Oh, ye souls who have made life Fragrant and white as tube roses From earth’s dark soil, Eternal peace!

Daniel M’Cumber

When I went to the city, Mary McNeely, I meant to return for you, yes I did. But Laura, my landlady’s daughter, Stole into my life somehow, and won me away. Then after some years whom should I meet But Georgine Miner from Niles—a sprout Of the free love, Fourierist gardens that flourished Before the war all over Ohio. Her dilettante lover had tired of her, And she turned to me for strength and solace. She was some kind of a crying thing One takes in one’s arms, and all at once It slimes your face with its running nose, And voids its essence all over you; Then bites your hand and springs away. And there you stand bleeding and smelling to heaven Why, Mary McNeely, I was not worthy To kiss the hem of your robe!

Georgine Sand Miner

A stepmother drove me from home, embittering me. A squaw-man, a flaneur and dilettante took my virtue. For years I was his mistress—no one knew. I learned from him the parasite cunning With which I moved with the bluffs, like a flea on a dog. All the time I was nothing but “very private,” with different men. Then Daniel, the radical, had me for years. His sister called me his mistress; And Daniel wrote me: “Shameful word, soiling our beautiful love!” But my anger coiled, preparing its fangs. My Lesbian friend next took a hand. She hated Daniel’s sister. And Daniel despised her midget husband. And she saw a chance for a poisonous thrust: I must complain to the wife of Daniel’s pursuit! But before I did that I begged him to fly to London with me. “Why not stay in the city just as we have?” he asked. Then I turned submarine and revenged his repulse In the arms of my dilettante friend. Then up to the surface, Bearing the letter that Daniel wrote me To prove my honor was all intact, showing it to his wife, My Lesbian friend and everyone. If Daniel had only shot me dead! Instead of stripping me naked of lies A harlot in body and soul.

Thomas Rhodes