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
John Wasson
Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing, One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing, Lengthening out the farewell to me
John Ballard
In the lust of my strength I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me: I might as well have cursed the stars. In my last sickness I was in agony, but I
Fletcher McGee
She took my strength by the minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled
Georgine Sand Miner
A step-mother 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
Deacon Taylor
I belonged to the church, And to the party of prohibition; And the villagers thought I died of eating watermelon. In truth I had cirrhosis of the liver, For every noon for thirty years,
Godwin James
Harry Wilmans! You who fell in a swamp Near Manila, following the flag, You were not wounded by the greatness of a dream, Or destroyed by ineffectual work, Or driven to madness by Satanic
Frank Drummer
Out of a cell into this darkened space The end at twenty-five! My tongue could not speak what stirred within me, And the village thought me a fool. Yet at the start there was
Mrs. Benjamin Painter
I know that he told how I snared his soul With a snare which bled him to death. And all the men loved him, And most of the women pitied him. But suppose you
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
Ami Green
Not “a youth with hoary head and haggard eye,” But an old man with a smooth skin And black hair! I had the face of a boy as long as I lived, And for
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
Hon. Henry Bennett
It never came into my mind Until I was ready to die That Jenny had loved me to death, with malice of heart. For I was seventy, she was thirty-five, And I wore myself
Flossie Cabanis
From Bindle’s opera house in the village To Broadway is a great step. But I tried to take it, my ambition fired When sixteen years of age, Seeing “East Lynne” played here in the
The Spooniad
[The late Mr. Jonathan Swift Somers, laureate of Spoon River, planned The Spooniad as an epic in twenty-four books, but unfortunately did not live to complete even the first book. The fragment was found