Father Malloy
You are over there, Father Malloy, Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave, Not here with us on the hill Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision And drifting hope, and
The Village Atheist
Ye young debaters over the doctrine Of the soul’s immortality I who lie here was the village atheist, Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments Of the infidels. But through a long sickness Coughing myself
Gustav Richter
After a long day of work in my hot-houses Sleep was sweet, but if you sleep on your left side Your dreams may be abruptly ended. I was among my flowers where some one
Barney Hainsfeather
If the excursion train to Peoria Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with my life Certainly I should have escaped this place. But as it was burned as well, they mistook me
Aaron Hatfield
Better than granite, Spoon River, Is the memory-picture you keep of me Standing before the pioneer men and women There at Concord Church on Communion day. Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth
Julia Miller
We quarreled that morning, For he was sixty-five, and I was thirty, And I was nervous and heavy with the child Whose birth I dreaded. I thought over the last letter written me By
Russell Kincaid
In the last spring I ever knew, In those last days, I sat in the forsaken orchard Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered The hills at Miller’s Ford; Just to muse on the apple
English Thornton
Here! You sons of the men Who fought with Washington at Valley Forge, And whipped Black Hawk at Starved Rock, Arise! Do battle with the descendants of those Who bought land in the loop
Theodore the Poet
As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hours On the shore of the turbid Spoon With deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish’s burrow, Waiting for him to appear, pushing ahead,
A. D. Blood
If you in the village think that my work was a good one, Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards, And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett, In many a
Ezra Bartlett
A chaplain in the army, A chaplain in the prisons, An exhorter in Spoon River, Drunk with divinity, Spoon River Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame, And myself to scorn and wretchedness. But
Kinsey Keene
Your attention, Thomas Rhodes, president of the bank; Coolbaugh Wedon, editor of the Argus; Rev. Peet, pastor of the leading church; A. D. Blood, several times Mayor of Spoon River; And finally all of
O Glorious France
You have become a forge of snow-white fire, A crucible of molten steel, O France! Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn And fade in light for you, O glorious France! They
Jacob Goodpasture
When Fort Sumter fell and the war came I cried out in bitterness of soul: “O glorious republic now no more!” When they buried my soldier son To the call of trumpets and the
On a Bust
A giant as we hoped, in truth, a dwarf; A barrel of slop that shines on Lethe’s wharf’, Which at first seemed a vessel with sweet wine For thirsty lips. So down the swift