W. Lloyd Garrison Standard
Vegetarian, non-resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian; Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll. Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan. Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain, Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing
Percival Sharp
Observe the clasped hands! Are they hands of farewell or greeting, Hands that I helped or hands that helped me? Would it not be well to carve a hand With an inverted thumb, like
Mary McNeely
Passer-by, To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one. When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul Then you have lost your soul. It is written:
Constance Hately
You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River, In rearing Irene and Mary, Orphans of my older sister! And you censure Irene and Mary For their contempt of me! But praise not my self-sacrifice, And censure
Eugene Carman
Rhodes’ slave! Selling shoes and gingham, Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days For more than twenty years. Saying “Yes’m” and “Yes,
Professor Newcomer
Everyone laughed at Col. Prichard For buying an engine so powerful That it wrecked itself, and wrecked the grinder He ran it with. But here is a joke of cosmic size: The urge of
Ralph Rhodes
All they said was true: I wrecked my father’s bank with my loans To dabble in wheat; but this was true I was buying wheat for him as well, Who couldn’t margin the deal
Carl Hamblin
The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked, And I was tarred and feathered, For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago: “I saw a beautiful woman with bandaged
George Trimble
Do you remember when I stood on the steps Of the Court House and talked free-silver, And the single-tax of Henry George? Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader Lost the first
Jeremy Carlisle
Passer-by, sin beyond any sin Is the sin of blindness of souls to other souls. And joy beyond any joy is the joy Of having the good in you seen, and seeing the good
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
Jeduthan Hawley
There would be a knock at the door And I would arise at midnight and go to the shop, Where belated travelers would hear me hammering Sepulchral boards and tacking satin. And often I
Oaks Tutt
My mother was for woman’s rights And my father was the rich miller at London Mills. I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them. When my father died, I
Doctor Meyers
No other man, unless it was Doc Hill, Did more for people in this town than l. And all the weak, the halt, the improvident And those who could not pay flocked to me.
Magrady Graham
Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor? For when the returns began to come in And Cleveland was sweeping the East, It was too much for you, poor old heart, Who had striven for democracy