Spoon River Anthology Part 13

How did you feel, you libertarians, Who spent your talents rallying n.o.ble reasons Around the saloon, as if Liberty Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar Or at a table, guzzling?

How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you, Who almost stoned me for a tyrant Garbed as a moralist, And as a wry-faced ascetic frowning upon Yorkshire pudding, Roast beef and ale and good will and rosy cheer-- Things you never saw in a grog-shop in your life?

How did you feel after I was dead and gone, And your G.o.ddess, Liberty, unmasked as a strumpet, Selling out the streets of Spoon River To the insolent giants Who manned the saloons from afar?

Did it occur to you that personal liberty Is liberty of the mind, Rather than of the belly?

Walter Simmons

MY parents thought that I would be As great as Edison or greater: For as a boy I made balloons And wondrous kites and toys with clocks And little engines with tracks to run on And telephones of cans and thread.

I played the cornet and painted pictures, Modeled in clay and took the part Of the villain in the "Octoroon."

But then at twenty--one I married And had to live, and so, to live I learned the trade of making watches And kept the jewelry store on the square, Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking,-- Not of business, but of the engine I studied the calculus to build.

And all Spoon River watched and waited To see it work, but it never worked.

And a few kind souls believed my genius Was somehow hampered by the store.

It wasn't true.

The truth was this: I did not have the brains.

Tom Beatty

I WAS a lawyer like Harmon Whitney Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard, For I tried the rights of property, Although by lamp-light, for thirty years, In that poker room in the opera house.

And I say to you that Life's a gambler Head and shoulders above us all.

No mayor alive can close the house.

And if you lose, you can squeal as you will; You'll not get back your money.

He makes the percentage hard to conquer; He stacks the cards to catch your weakness And not to meet your strength.

And he gives you seventy years to play: For if you cannot win in seventy You cannot win at all.

So, if you lose, get out of the room-- Get out of the room when your time is up.

It's mean to sit and fumble the cards And curse your losses, leaden-eyed, Whining to try and try.

Roy Butler

IF the learned Supreme Court of Illinois Got at the secret of every case As well as it does a case of rape It would be the greatest court in the world.

A jury, of neighbors mostly, with "Butch" Weldy As foreman, found me guilty in ten minutes And two ballots on a case like this: Richard Bandle and I had trouble over a fence And my wife and Mrs. Bandle quarreled As to whether Ipava was a finer town than Table Grove.

I awoke one morning with the love of G.o.d Br.i.m.m.i.n.g over my heart, so I went to see Richard To settle the fence in the spirit of Jesus Christ.

I knocked on the door, and his wife opened; She smiled and asked me in.

I entered-- She slammed the door and began to scream, "Take your hands off, you low down varlet!"

Just then her husband entered.

I waved my hands, choked up with words.

He went for his gun, and I ran out.

But neither the Supreme Court nor my wife Believed a word she said.

Searcy Foote

I WANTED to go away to college But rich Aunt Persis wouldn't help me.

So I made gardens and raked the lawns And bought John Alden's books with my earnings And toiled for the very means of life.

I wanted to marry Delia p.r.i.c.kett, But how could I do it with what I earned?

And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy Who sat in a wheel-chair half alive With her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowed The soup ran out of her mouth like a duck-- A gourmand yet, investing her income In mortgages, fretting all the time About her notes and rents and papers.

That day I was sawing wood for her, And reading Proudhon in between.

I went in the house for a drink of water, And there she sat asleep in her chair, And Proudhon lying on the table, And a bottle of chloroform on the book, She used sometimes for an aching tooth!

I poured the chloroform on a handkerchief And held it to her nose till she died.-- Oh Delia, Delia, you and Proudhon Steadied my hand, and the coroner Said she died of heart failure.

I married Delia and got the money-- A joke on you, Spoon River?

Edmund Pollard

I WOULD I had thrust my hands of flesh Into the disk--flowers bee-infested, Into the mirror-like core of fire Of the light of life, the sun of delight.

For what are anthers worth or petals Or halo-rays? Mockeries, shadows Of the heart of the flower, the central flame All is yours, young pa.s.ser-by; Enter the banquet room with the thought; Don't sidle in as if you were doubtful Whether you're welcome--the feast is yours!

Nor take but a little, refusing more With a bashful "Thank you", when you're hungry.

Is your soul alive? Then let it feed!

Leave no balconies where you can climb; Nor milk-white bosoms where you can rest; Nor golden heads with pillows to share; Nor wine cups while the wine is sweet; Nor ecstasies of body or soul, You will die, no doubt, but die while living In depths of azure, rapt and mated, Kissing the queen-bee, Life!

Thomas Trevelyan

READING in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys, Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain For the guilty pa.s.sion of Tereus for Philomela, The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne, And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing Till the G.o.ds made Philomela a nightingale, Lute of the rising moon, and Procne a swallow Oh livers and artists of h.e.l.las centuries gone, Sealing in little thuribles dreams and wisdom, Incense beyond all price, forever fragrant, A breath whereof makes clear the eyes of the soul How I inhaled its sweetness here in Spoon River!

The thurible opening when I had lived and learned How all of us kill the children of love, and all of us, Knowing not what we do, devour their flesh; And all of us change to singers, although it be But once in our lives, or change--alas!--to swallows, To twitter amid cold winds and falling leaves!

Percival Sharp

OBSERVE the clasped hands!

Are they hands of farewell or greeting, Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?

Would it not be well to carve a hand With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?

And yonder is a broken chain, The weakest-link idea perhaps--but what was it?

And lambs, some lying down, Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd-- Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up-- Why not chisel a few shambles?

And fallen columns!

Carve the pedestal, please, Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall.

And compa.s.ses and mathematical instruments, In irony of the under tenants, ignorance Of determinants and the calculus of variations.

And anchors, for those who never sailed.

And gates ajar--yes, so they were; You left them open and stray goats entered your garden.

And an eye watching like one of the Arimaspi-- So did you--with one eye.

And angels blowing trumpets--you are heralded-- It is your horn and your angel and your family's estimate.

It is all very well, but for myself I know I stirred certain vibrations in Spoon River Which are my true epitaph, more lasting than stone.

Hiram Scates

I TRIED to win the nomination For president of the County-board And I made speeches all over the County Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival, As an enemy of the people, In league with the master-foes of man.

Young idealists, broken warriors, Hobbling on one crutch of hope, Souls that stake their all on the truth, Losers of worlds at heaven's bidding, Flocked about me and followed my voice As the savior of the County.

But Solomon won the nomination; And then I faced about, And rallied my followers to his standard, And made him victor, made him King Of the Golden Mountain with the door Which closed on my heels just as I entered, Flattered by Solomon's invitation, To be the County--board's secretary.