Who grew rich trading with the indians, and who
Afterwards took the bankrupt law
And emergeed from it richer than ever.
Myself grown tired of toil and poverty
And beholding how Old Bill and others grew in wealth,
Robbed a traveler one night near Proctor’s Grove,
Killing him unwittingly while doing so,
For the which I was tried and hanged.
That was my way of going into bankruptcy.
Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways
Sleep peacefully side by side.
Cried, ‘There’s a ghost,’ and I, ‘It’s Delphic Apollo’;And the son of the banker derided us, saying, ‘It’s lightBy the flags at the water’s edge, you half-witted fools.’And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long afterPoor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his deathDown, down, through bellowing darkness, I carriedThe vision…
There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away,And the voice of a plowman on Shipley’s hill.The forest beyond the orchard is stillWith midsummer stillness;And along the road a wagon chuckles,Loaded with corn, going to Atterbury.And an old man sits under a tree asleep,And an old woman crosses the road,Coming from the orchard with a…
And the silence of a man and a maid,And the silence of the sickWhen their eyes roam about the room.And I ask: For the depths,Of what use is language?A beast of the field moans a few timesWhen death takes its young.And we are voiceless in the presence of realities —We cannot speak.A curious boy asks…
Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?Would it not be well to carve a handWith an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?And yonder is a broken chain,The weakest-link idea perhaps —But what was it?And lambs, some lying down,Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd —Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up —Why not…
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, nor fungus,Nor destroying insect, as the sexton thinks.Look, Samuel, where the roots have struck rock,And can no further spread.And all the while the…
And know as you lie there, He is not your friend?’Over and over I said, I, the revivalist.Ah, yes! but there are friends and friends.And blessed are you, say I, who know all now,You who have lost, ere you pass,A father or mother, or old grandfather or motherSome beautiful soul that lived life strongly,And knew…
