Russian Sonia

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1. 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 […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. Lucinda Matlock I went to the dances at Chandlerville, And played snap-out at Winchester. One time we changed partners, Driving home in the midnight of middle June, And then I found Davis. We were married and lived together for seventy years, Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children, Eight of whom we lost Ere I had reached the […]...
4. Walter Simmons My parents thought that I would be As great as Edison or greater: For as a boy I made balloons And wondrous kites and toys with clocks And little engines with tracks to run on And telephones of cans and thread. I played the cornet and painted pictures, Modeled in clay and took the part […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Ida Chicken After I had attended lectures At our Chautauqua, and studied French For twenty years, committing the grammar Almost by heart, I thought I’d take a trip to Paris To give my culture a final polish. So I went to Peoria for a passport (Thomas Rhodes was on the train that morning.) And there the clerk […]...
9. Spring When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he: ‘Cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo!’ O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks […]...
10. Josiah Tompkins I was well known and much beloved And rich, as fortunes are reckoned In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked. That was the home for me, Though all my children had flown afar- Which is the way of Nature-all but one. The boy, who was the baby, stayed at home, To be my […]...
11. The Flour Bin By Lawson’s Hill, near Mudgee, On old Eurunderee – The place they called “New Pipeclay”, Where the diggers used to be – On a dreary old selection, Where times were dry and thin, In a slab and shingle kitchen There stood a flour bin. ‘Twas “ploorer” with the cattle, ‘Twas rust and smut in wheat, […]...
12. Washington McNeely Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, […]...
13. 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” […]...
14. Enoch Dunlap How many times, during the twenty years I was your leader, friends of Spoon River, Did you neglect the convention and caucus, And leave the burden on my hands Of guarding and saving the people’s cause? Sometimes because you were ill; Or your grandmother was ill; Or you drank too much and fell asleep; Or […]...
15. 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 why will you never see that love of women, And even love of wine, Are the stimulants by which the soul, […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Lover's Gifts XXII: I Shall Gladly Suffer I shall gladly suffer the pride of culture to die out in my house, If only in some happy future I am born a herd-boy in the Brinda Forest. The herd-boy who grazes his cattle sitting under the banyan Tree, and idly weaves gunja flowers into garlands, who loves to Splash and plunge in the […]...
18. Dream Song 38: The Russian grin bellows his condolence The Russian grin bellows his condolence Tó the family: ah but it’s Kay, & Ted, & Chris & Anne, Henry thinks of: who eased his fearful way From here, in here, to there. This wants thought. I won’t make it out. Maybe the source of noble such may come Clearer to dazzled Henry. It may […]...
19. Elsa Wertman I was a peasant girl from Germany, Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong. And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene’s. On a summer’s day when she was away He stole into the kitchen and took me Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat, I turning my head. Then neither of […]...
20. Nellie Clark I was only eight years old; And before I grew up and knew what it meant I had no words for it, except That I was frightened and told my Mother; And that my Father got a pistol And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy, Fifteen years old, except for his Mother. […]...
21. ON HIMSELF A wearied pilgrim I have wander’d here, Twice five-and-twenty, bate me but one year; Long I have lasted in this world; ’tis true But yet those years that I have lived, but few. Who by his gray hairs doth his lustres tell, Lives not those years, but he that lives them well: One man has […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. 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, First his waving antennae, like straws of hay, And soon his body, colored like soap-stone, Gemmed with eyes of jet. And […]...
25. Twenty Years Hence Twenty years hence my eyes may grow If not quite dim, yet rather so, Still yours from others they shall know Twenty years hence. Twenty years hence though it may hap That I be called to take a nap In a cool cell where thunderclap Was never heard, There breathe but o’er my arch of […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. Hortense Robbins My name used to be in the papers daily As having dined somewhere, Or traveled somewhere, Or rented a house in Paris, Where I entertained the nobility. I was forever eating or traveling, Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden. Now I am here to do honor To Spoon River, here beside the family whence I […]...
28. Amos Sibley Not character, not fortitude, not patience Were mine, the which the village thought I had In bearing with my wife, while preaching on, Doing the work God chose for me. I loathed her as a termagant, as a wanton. I knew of her adulteries, every one. But even so, if I divorced the woman I […]...
29. 339. Song-O for ane an' twenty, Tam Chorus.-An’ O for ane an’ twenty, Tam! And hey, sweet ane an’ twenty, Tam! I’ll learn my kin a rattlin’ sang, An’ I saw ane an’ twenty, Tam. THEY snool me sair, and haud me down, An’ gar me look like bluntie, Tam; But three short years will soon wheel roun’, An’ then comes ane […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. Dedication For A Plot Of Ground This plot of ground Facing the waters of this inlet Is dedicated to the living presence of Emily Dickinson Wellcome Who was born in England; married; Lost her husband and with Her five year old son Sailed for New York in a two-master; Was driven to the Azores; Ran adrift on Fire Island shoal, Met […]...
32. 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, […]...
33. Charlie French Did you ever find out Which of the boys it was Who snapped the toy pistol against my hand? There when the flags were red and white In the breeze and “Bucky” Estil Was firing the cannon brought to Spoon River From Vicksburg by Captain Harris; And the lemonade stands running And the band was […]...
34. Richard Bone When I first came to Spoon River I did not know whether what they told me Was true or false. They would bring me an epitaph And stand around the shop while I worked And say “He was so kind,” “He was wonderful,” “She was the sweetest woman,” “He was a consistent Christian.” And I […]...
35. Russian Cathedral Bow down my soul in worship very low And in the holy silences be lost. Bow down before the marble man of woe, Bow down before the singing angel host. What jewelled glory fills my spirit’s eye, What golden grandeur moves the depths of me! The soaring arches lift me up on high Taking my […]...
36. 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, […]...
37. Birthday (Autobiography) Seventy years ago my mother labored to bear me, A twelve-pound baby with a big head, Her first, it was plain torture. Finally they used the forceps And dragged me out, with one prong In my right eye, and slapped and banged me until I breathed. I am not particularly grateful for it. As to […]...
38. Distressed Haiku In a week or ten days The snow and ice Will melt from Cemetery Road. I’m coming! Don’t move! Once again it is April. Today is the day We would have been married Twenty-six years. I finished with April Halfway through March. You think that their Dying is the worst Thing that could happen. Then […]...
39. True Love In silence the heart raves. It utters words Meaningless, that never had A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed, Freckled. In a big black Buick, Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat In front of the drugstore, sipping something Through a straw. There is nothing like Beauty. It stops your heart. […]...
40. 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 […]...