Spoon River Anthology Part 19

Hannah Armstrong

I WROTE him a letter asking him for old times, sake To discharge my sick boy from the army; But maybe he couldn't read it.

Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter.

But maybe that was lost in the mails.

So I traveled all the way to Washington.

I was more than an hour finding the White House.

And when I found it they turned me away, Hiding their smiles.

Then I thought: "Oh, well, he ain't the same as when I boarded him And he and my husband worked together And all of us called him Abe, there in Menard."

As a last attempt I turned to a guard and said: "Please say it's old Aunt Hannah Armstrong From Illinois, come to see him about her sick boy In the army."

Well, just in a moment they let me in!

And when he saw me he broke in a laugh, And dropped his business as president, And wrote in his own hand Doug's discharge, Talking the while of the early days, And telling stories.

Lucinda Matlock

I WENT to the dances at Chandlerville, And played snap-out at Winchester.

One time we changed partners, Driving home in the moonlight of middle June, And then I found Davis.

We were married and lived together for seventy years, Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children, Eight of whom we lost Ere I had reached the age of sixty.

I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick, I made the garden, and for holiday Rambled over the fields where sang the larks, And by Spoon River gathering many a sh.e.l.l, And many a flower and medicinal weed-- Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.

At ninety--six I had lived enough, that is all, And pa.s.sed to a sweet repose.

What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?

Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you-- It takes life to love Life.

Davis Matlock

SUPPOSE it is nothing but the hive: That there are drones and workers And queens, and nothing but storing honey-- (Material things as well as culture and wisdom)-- For the next generation, this generation never living, Except as it swarms in the sun-light of youth, Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered, And tasting, on the way to the hive From the clover field, the delicate spoil.

Suppose all this, and suppose the truth: That the nature of man is greater Than nature's need in the hive; And you must bear the burden of life, As well as the urge from your spirit's excess-- Well, I say to live it out like a G.o.d Sure of immortal life, though you are in doubt, Is the way to live it.

If that doesn't make G.o.d proud of you Then G.o.d is nothing but gravitation Or sleep is the golden goal.

Jennie M'Grew

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!

And not the flap of a condor wing When the roar of life in your ears begins As a sound heard never before!

But on a sunny afternoon, By a country road, Where purple rag-weeds bloom along a straggling fence And the field is gleaned, and the air is still To see against the sun-light something black Like a blot with an iris rim-- That is the sign to eyes of second sight. . .

And that I saw!

Columbus Cheney

THIS weeping willow!

Why do you not plant a few For the millions of children not yet born, As well as for us?

Are they not non-existent, or cells asleep Without mind?

Or do they come to earth, their birth Rupturing the memory of previous being?

Answer!

The field of unexplored intuition is yours.

But in any case why not plant willows for them, As well as for us?

Marie Bateson You observe the carven hand With the index finger pointing heavenward.

That is the direction, no doubt.

But how shall one follow it?

It is well to abstain from murder and l.u.s.t, To forgive, do good to others, worship G.o.d Without graven images.

But these are external means after all By which you chiefly do good to yourself.

The inner kernel is freedom, It is light, purity-- I can no more, Find the goal or lose it, according to your vision.

Tennessee Claflin Shope

I WAS the laughing-stock of the village, Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves-- Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek The same as English.

For instead of talking free trade, Or preaching some form of baptism; Instead of believing in the efficacy Of walking cracks, picking up pins the right way, Seeing the new moon over the right shoulder, Or curing rheumatism with blue gla.s.s, I a.s.serted the sovereignty of my own soul.

Before Mary Baker G. Eddy even got started With what she called science I had mastered the "Bhagavad Gita,"

And cured my soul, before Mary Began to cure bodies with souls-- Peace to all worlds!

Imanuel Ehrenhardt

I BEGAN with Sir William Hamilton's lectures.

Then studied Dugald Stewart; And then John Locke on the Understanding, And then Descartes, Fichte and Sch.e.l.ling, Kant and then Schopenhauer-- Books I borrowed from old Judge Somers.

All read with rapturous industry Hoping it was reserved to me To grasp the tail of the ultimate secret, And drag it out of its hole.

My soul flew up ten thousand miles And only the moon looked a little bigger.

Then I fell back, how glad of the earth!

All through the soul of William Jones Who showed me a letter of John Muir.

Samuel Gardner

I WHO kept the greenhouse, Lover of trees and flowers, Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm, Measuring its generous branches with my eye, And listened to its rejoicing leaves Lovingly patting each other With sweet aeolian whispers.

And well they might: For the roots had grown so wide and deep That the soil of the hill could not withhold Aught of its virtue, enriched by rain, And warmed by the sun; But yielded it all to the thrifty roots, Through which it was drawn and whirled to the trunk, And thence to the branches, and into the leaves, Wherefrom the breeze took life and sang.

Now I, an under--tenant of the earth, can see That the branches of a tree Spread no wider than its roots.

And how shall the soul of a man Be larger than the life he has lived?

Dow Kritt

SAMUEL is forever talking of his elm-- But I did not need to die to learn about roots: I, who dug all the ditches about Spoon River.

Look at my elm!

Sprung from as good a seed as his, Sown at the same time, It is dying at the top: Not from lack of life, nor fungus, Nor destroying insect, as the s.e.xton thinks.

Look, Samuel, where the roots have struck rock, And can no further spread.

And all the while the top of the tree Is tiring itself out, and dying, Trying to grow.