Ezra Bartlett

Related poetry:

1. Archibald Higbie I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, I was ashamed of you. I despised you As the place of my nativity. And there in Rome, among the artists, Speaking Italian, speaking French, I seemed to myself at times to be free Of every trace of my origin. I seemed to be […]...
2. Seth Compton When I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring minds, Was sold at auction on the public square, As if to destroy the last vestige Of my memory and influence. For those of you who could not see the virtue Of knowing Volney’s “Ruins” […]...
3. Mabel Osborne Your red blossoms amid green leaves Are drooping, beautiful geranium! But you do not ask for water. You cannot speak! You do not need to speak Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst, Yet they do not bring water! They pass on, saying: “The geranium wants water.” And I, who had happiness to share […]...
4. Did Our Best Moment last Did Our Best Moment last ‘Twould supersede the Heaven A few and they by Risk procure So this Sort are not given Except as stimulants in Cases of Despair Or Stupor The Reserve These Heavenly Moments are A Grant of the Divine That Certain as it Comes Withdraws and leaves the dazzled Soul In her […]...
5. John Hancock Otis As to democracy, fellow citizens, Are you not prepared to admit That I, who inherited riches and was to the manor born, Was second to none in Spoon River In my devotion to the cause of Liberty? While my contemporary, Anthony Findlay, Born in a shanty and beginning life As a water carrier to the […]...
6. Henry C. Calhoun I reached the highest place in Spoon River, But through what bitterness of spirit! The face of my father, sitting speechless, Child-like, watching his canaries, And looking at the court-house window Of the county judge’s room, And his admonitions to me to seek My own in life, and punish Spoon River To avenge the wrong […]...
7. Rabbi Ben Ezra Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith ‘A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’ Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed ‘Which rose make ours, Which […]...
8. Wallace Ferguson There at Geneva where Mt. Blanc floated above The wine-hued lake like a cloud, when a breeze was blown Out of an empty sky of blue, and the roaring Rhone Hurried under the bridge through chasms of rock; And the music along the cafés was part of the splendor Of dancing water under a torrent […]...
9. LET EZRA POUND SPEAK If you have nothing to say keep silent Let Ezra Pound speak From the shadows the splendid old man From the fine water line The magnificent old man Shows you the genuine banknotes of his fortune And all shine legitimate fish Of an infinite river which indeed Never stops. If you have nothing to say […]...
10. Voltaire Johnson Why did you bruise me with your rough places If you did not want me to tell you about them? And stifle me with your stupidities, If you did not want me to expose them? And nail me with the nails of cruelty, If you did not want me to pluck the nails forth And […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Penniwit, the Artist I lost my patronage in Spoon River From trying to put my mind in the camera To catch the soul of the person. The very best picture I ever took Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law. He sat upright and had me pause Till he got his cross-eye straight. Then when he was ready […]...
13. Henry Tripp The bank broke and I lost my savings. I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River And I made up my mind to run away And leave my place in life and my family; But just as the midnight train pulled in, Quick off the steps jumped Cully Green And Martin Vise, and […]...
14. Mickey M'Grew It was just like everything else in life: Something outside myself drew me down, My own strength never failed me. Why, there was the time I earned the money With which to go away to school, And my father suddenly needed help And I had to give him all of it. Just so it went […]...
15. Adam Weirauch I was crushed between Altgeld and Armour. I lost many friends, much time and money Fighting for Altgeld whom Editor Whedon Denounced as the candidate of gamblers and anarchists. Then Armour started to ship dressed meat to Spoon River, Forcing me to shut down my slaughter-house, And my butcher shop went all to pieces. The […]...
16. So I Said I Am Ezra So I said I am Ezra And the wind whipped my throat Gaming for the sounds of my voice I listened to the wind Go over my head and up into the night Turning to the sea I said I am Ezra But there were no echoes from the waves The words were swallowed up […]...
17. Harry Carey Goodhue You never marveled, dullards of Spoon River, When Chase Henry voted against the saloons To revenge himself for being shut off. But none of you was keen enough To follow my steps, or trace me home As Chase’s spiritual brother. Do you remember when I fought The bank and the courthouse ring, For pocketing the […]...
18. Ezra on the Strike Wal, Thanksgivin’ do be comin’ round. With the price of turkeys on the bound, And coal, by gum! Thet were just found, Is surely gettin’ cheaper. The winds will soon begin to howl, And winter, in its yearly growl, Across the medders begin to prowl, And Jack Frost gettin’ deeper. By shucks! It seems to […]...
19. Elliott Hawkins I looked like Abraham Lincoln. I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship, But standing for the rights of property and for order. A regular church attendant, Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you Against the evils of discontent and envy, And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union, […]...
20. William Jones Once in a while a curious weed unknown to me, Needing a name from my books; Once in a while a letter from Yeomans. Out of the mussel-shells gathered along the shore Sometimes a pearl with a glint like meadow rue: Then betimes a letter from Tyndall in England, Stamped with the stamp of Spoon […]...
21. Robert Davidson I grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men. If I saw a soul that was strong I wounded its pride and devoured its strength. The shelters of friendship knew my cunning, For where I could steal a friend I did so. And wherever I could enlarge my power By undermining ambition, I did […]...
22. Calvin Campbell Ye who are kicking against Fate, Tell me how it is that on this hill-side, Running down to the river, Which fronts the sun and the south-wind, This plant draws from the air and soil Poison and becomes poison ivy? And this plant draws from the same air and soil Sweet elixirs and colors and […]...
23. Elmer Karr What but the love of God could have softened And made forgiving the people of Spoon River Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt And murdered him beside? Oh, loving hearts that took me in again When I returned from fourteen years in prison! Oh, helping hands that in the church received me, […]...
24. Cologne In Kцhln, a town of monks and bones, And pavements fang’d with murderous stones And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches ; I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye Nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne […]...
25. A Divine Mistress In Nature’s pieces still I see Some error that might mended be; Something my wish could still remove, Alter or add; but my fair love Was fram’d by hands far more divine, For she hath every beauteous line: Yet I had been far happier, Had Nature, that made me, made her. Then likeness might (that […]...
26. Cologne In Kohln, a town of monks and bones, And pavements fang’d with murderous stones And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches; I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye Nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But […]...
27. Reuben Pantier Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted, Your love was not all in vain. I owe whatever I was in life To your hope that would not give me up, To your love that saw me still as good. Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story. I pass the effect of my […]...
28. MYSTIC LADY I search for love and find my soul With you, my love, I am whole And the mystic love that binds us Reminds me of divinity. In your heart, I find, The love that lacked in mine Your touch and your scent Open the doors to a heavenly vent With you I realize What I […]...
29. Psalm 103 part 1 v.1-7 L. M. Blessing God for his goodness to soul and body. Bless, O my soul, the living God, Call home thy thoughts that rove abroad; Let all the powers within me join In work and worship so divine. Bless, O my soul, the God of grace; His favors claim thy highest praise: Why should […]...
30. Isaiah Beethoven They told me I had three months to live, So I crept to Bernadotte, And sat by the mill for hours and hours Where the gathered waters deeply moving Seemed not to move: O world, that’s you! You are but a widened place in the river Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her […]...
31. Emily Sparks Where is my boy, my boy In what far part of the world? The boy I loved best of all in the school? I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart, Who made them all my children. Did I know my boy aright, Thinking of him as a spirit aflame, Active, ever aspiring? Oh, […]...
32. Thomas Trevelyan Reading in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys, Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela, The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne, And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing Till the gods made Philomela a nightingale, Lute of the rising moon, and […]...
33. Music At The Villa Marina FOR some abiding central source of power, Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flow And, flowing, carry virtue. Far below, The vain tumultuous passions of the hour Fleet fast and disappear; and as the sun Shines on the wake of tempests, there is cast O’er all the shattered ruins of my past A strong contentment […]...
34. Harmon Whitney Out of the lights and roar of cities, Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River, Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken, The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt, But to hide a wounded pride as well. To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds I, gifted […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. 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, […]...
37. 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, […]...
38. John Cabanis Neither spite, fellow citizens, Nor forgetfulness of the shiftlessness, And the lawlessness and waste Under democracy’s rule in Spoon River Made me desert the party of law and order And lead the liberal party. Fellow citizens! I saw as one with second sight That every man of the millions of men Who give themselves to […]...
39. Psalm 18 part 1 v.1-6,15-18 L. M. Deliverance from despair. Thee will I love, O Lord, my strength, My rock, my tower, my high defence: Thy mighty arm shall be my trust, For I have found salvation thence. Death, and the terrors of the grave, Stood round me with their dismal shade; While floods of high temptations rose, And […]...
40. Give Me Strength This is my prayer to thee, my lord – strike, Strike at the root of penury in my heart. Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows. Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service. Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before […]...