“Indignation” Jones

You would not believe, would you That I came from good Welsh stock? That I was purer blooded than the white trash here? And of more direct lineage than the New Englanders And Virginians of Spoon River? You would not believe that I had been to school And read some books. You saw me only as a run-down man With matted hair and beard And ragged clothes. Sometimes a man’s life turns into a cancer From being bruised and continually bruised, And swells into a purplish mass Like growths on stalks of corn. Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow, With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter, Whom you tormented and drove to death. So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days Of my life. No more you hear my footsteps in the morning, Resounding on the hollow sidewalk Going to the grocery store for a little corn meal And a nickel’s worth of bacon.

“Butch” Weldy

After I got religion and steadied down They gave me a job in the canning works, And every morning I had to fill The tank in the yard with gasoline, That fed the blow-fires in the sheds To heat the soldering irons. And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it, Carrying buckets full of the stuff. One morning, as I stood there pouring, The air grew still and seemed to heave, And I shot up as the tank exploded, And down I came with both legs broken, And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs. For someone left a blow—fire going, And something sucked the flame in the tank. The Circuit Judge said whoever did it Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so Old Rhodes’ son didn’t have to pay me. And I sat on the witness stand as blind As Jack the Fiddler, saying over and over, “I didn’t know him at all.”

Doctor Meyers

No other man, unless it was Doc Hill, Did more for people in this town than I. And all the weak, the halt, the improvident And those who could not pay flocked to me. I was good-hearted, easy Doctor Meyers. I was healthy, happy, in comfortable fortune, Blest with a congenial mate, my children raised, All wedded, doing well in the world. And then one night, Minerva, the poetess, Came to me in her trouble, crying. I tried to help her out—she died— They indicted me, the newspapers disgraced me, My wife perished of a broken heart. And pneumonia finished me.

Mrs. Meyers

He protested all his life long The newspapers lied about him villainously; That he was not at fault for Minerva’s fall, But only tried to help her. Poor soul so sunk in sin he could not see That even trying to help her, as he called it, He had broken the law human and divine. Passers by, an ancient admonition to you: If your ways would be ways of pleasantness, And all your pathways peace, Love God and keep his commandments.

Knowlt Hoheimer

I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge. When I felt the bullet enter my heart I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary, Instead of running away and joining the army. Rather a thousand times the county jail Than to lie under this marble figure with wings, And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, “Pro Patria.” What do they mean, anyway?

Lydia Puckett

Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war The day before Curl Trenary Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett For stealing hogs. But that’s not the reason he turned a soldier. He caught me running with Lucius Atherton. We quarreled and I told him never again To cross my path. Then he stole the hogs and went to the war— Back of every soldier is a woman.

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 a clear vision, A high and urgent purpose in my soul Which drove me on trying to memorize The Encyclopedia Britannica!

Hare Drummer

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s For cider, after school, in late September? Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin? For many times with the laughing girls and boys Played I along the road and over the hills When the sun was low and the air was cool, Stopping to club the walnut tree Standing leafless against a flaming west. Now, the smell of the autumn smoke, And the dropping acorns, And the echoes about the vales Bring dreams of life. They hover over me. They question me: Where are those laughing comrades? How many are with me, how many In the old orchards along the way to Siever’s, And in the woods that overlook The quiet water?

Conrad Siever

Not in that wasted garden Where bodies are drawn into grass That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens That bear no fruit— There where along the shaded walks Vain sighs are heard, And vainer dreams are dreamed Of close communion with departed souls— But here under the apple tree I loved and watched and pruned With gnarled hands In the long, long years; Here under the roots of this northern-spy To move in the chemic change and circle of life, Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree, And into the living epitaphs Of redder apples!

Doc Hill

I went up and down the streets Here and there by day and night, Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick. Do you know why? My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs. And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them. Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of my funeral, And hear them murmur their love and sorrow. But oh, dear God, my soul trembled, scarcely able To hold to the railing of the new life When I saw Em Stanton behind the oak tree At the grave, Hiding herself, and her grief!

Andy The Night-Watch

In my Spanish cloak, And old slouch hat, And overshoes of felt, And Tyke, my faithful dog, And my knotted hickory cane, I slipped about with a bull’s-eye lantern From door to door on the square, As the midnight stars wheeled round, And the bell in the steeple murmured From the blowing of the wind; And the weary steps of old Doc Hill Sounded like one who walks in sleep, And a far-off rooster crew. And now another is watching Spoon River As others watched before me. And here we lie, Doc Hill and I Where none breaks through and steals, And no eye needs to guard.

Sarah Brown

Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree. The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass, The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls, But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous In the blest Nirvana of eternal light! Go to the good heart that is my husband Who broods upon what he calls our guilty love:— Tell him that my love for you, no less than my love for him Wrought out my destiny—that through the flesh I won spirit, and through spirit, peace. There is no marriage in heaven But there is love.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

My father who owned the wagon-shop And grew rich shoeing horses Sent me to the University of Montreal. I learned nothing and returned home, Roaming the fields with Bert Kessler, Hunting quail and snipe. At Thompson’s Lake the trigger of my gun Caught in the side of the boat And a great hole was shot through my heart. Over me a fond father erected this marble shaft, On which stands the figure of a woman Carved by an Italian artist. They say the ashes of my namesake Were scattered near the pyramid of Caius Cestius Somewhere near Rome.

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 village By Ralph Barrett, the coming Romantic actor, who enthralled my soul. True, I trailed back home, a broken failure, When Ralph disappeared in New York, Leaving me alone in the city— But life broke him also. In all this place of silence There are no kindred spirits. How I wish Duse could stand amid the pathos Of these quiet fields And read these words.

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 that estranged young soul Whose betrayal of me I had concealed By marrying the old man. Then I took morphine and sat down to read. Across the blackness that came over my eyes I see the flickering light of these words even now: “And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt Be with me in paradise.”

Johnnie Sayre

Father, thou canst never know The anguish that smote my heart For my disobedience, the moment I felt The remorseless wheel of the engine Sink into the crying flesh of my leg. As they carried me to the home of widow Morris I could see the school-house in the valley To which I played truant to steal rides upon the trains. I prayed to live until I could ask your forgiveness— And then your tears, your broken words of comfort! From the solace of that hour I have gained infinite happiness. Thou wert wise to chisel for me: “Taken from the evil to come.”

Charlie French

Did you ever find out Which one of the O’Brien 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 were running And the band was playing, To have it all spoiled By a piece of a cap shot under the skin of my hand, And the boys all crowding about me saying: “You’ll die of lock-jaw, Charlie, sure.” Oh, dear! oh, dear! What chum of mine could have done it?