#Americans
Do you remember, O Delphic Apoll… The sunset hour by the river, when… Cried, “There’s a ghost,” and I,… And the son of the banker derided… By the flags at the water’s edge,…
There by the window in the old hou… Perched on the bluff, overlooking… My days of labor closed, sitting o… Day by day did I look in my memor… As one who gazes in an enchantress…
My name used to be in the papers d… As having dined somewhere, Or traveled somewhere, Or rented a house in Paris, Where I entertained the nobility.
They called me the weakling, the s… For my brothers were strong and be… While I, the last child of parent… Inherited only their residue of po… But they, my brothers, were eaten…
Nothing in life is alien to you: I was a penniless girl from Summu… Who stepped from the morning train… All the houses stood before me wit… And drawn shades—I was barred out…
Oh, you young radicals and dreamer… You dauntless fledglings Who pass by my headstone, Mock not its record of my captainc… And my faith in God!
As to democracy, fellow citizens, Are you not prepared to admit That I, who inherited riches and… Was second to none in Spoon River In my devotion to the cause of Li…
After I had attended lectures At our Chautauqua, and studied Fr… For twenty years, committing the g… Almost by heart, I thought I’d take a trip to Pari…
You have become a forge of snow-wh… A crucible of molten steel, O Fra… Your sons are stars who cluster to… And fade in light for you, O glor… They pass through meteor changes w…
I was Willie Metcalf. They used to call me “Doctor Meye… Because, they said, I looked like… And he was my father, according to… I lived in the livery stable,
If you in the village think that m… Who closed the saloons and stopped… And haled old Daisy Fraser before… In many a crusade to purge the peo… Why do you let the milliner’s daug…
From Bindle’s opera house in the… To Broadway is a great step. But I tried to take it, my ambiti… When sixteen years of age, Seeing “East Lynne” played here i…
I have known the silence of the st… And the silence of the city when i… And the silence of a man and a mai… And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the roo…
I never saw any difference Between playing cards for money And selling real estate, Practicing law, banking, or anythi… For everything is chance.
After I got religion and steadied… They gave me a job in the canning… And every morning I had to fill The tank in the yard with gasoline… That fed the blow-fires in the she…