Spoon River Anthology Part 6

He married me when drunk.

My life was wretched.

A year pa.s.sed 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, n.o.bles, 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 pa.s.sion 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, Pa.s.sing from the familiar room-- That is a power of unison between souls Like love itself!

The Circuit Judge

TAKE note, pa.s.sers-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 fathers 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 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 G.o.d 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.