Spoon River Anthology quotes

… And emerged from it richer than ever Myself grown tired of toil and poverty And beholding how Old Bill and other grew in wealth Robbed a traveler one night near Proctor’s Grove, Killing him unwittingly while doing so, For 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.

But what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart? The face of what I was, the face of what he made me! These are driving him to the place where I lie.

In death, therefore, I am avenged.

She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars.

My life’s blossom might have bloomed on all sides Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals On the side of me which you in the village could see. From the dust I lift a voice of protest:

My flowering side you never saw!

Ye living ones, ye are fools indeed Who do not know the ways of the wind And the unseen forces That govern the processes of life.

Under my jawbone is snuggled the bony nose of Nig—

Our story is lost in silence. Go by, mad world!

I know that he told that I snared his soul With a snare which bled him to death. And all the men loved him, And most of the women pitied him.

I am Minerva, the village poetess,

Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street

For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk, And all the more when “Butch” Weldy Captured me after a brutal hunt. He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;

And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up, Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice. Will someone go to the village newspaper, And gather into a book the verses I wrote?—

I thirsted so for love!

I hungered so for life!

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.

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.

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.

And you wondered in a trance of thought

What he knew, what he desired, and why he lived at all.

But later your vision watched for men and women Hiding in burrows of fate amid great cities, Looking for the souls of them to come out, So that you could see How they lived, and for what, And why they kept crawling so busily Along …

It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth And fight him openly, even in the street, Amid dust and howls of pain. The tongue may be an unruly member—

But silence poisons the soul.

Berate me who will—I am content.

Squire Higbee wrongs me to say That I died from smoking Red Eagle cigars. Eating hot pie and gulping coffee During the scorching hours of harvest time Brought me here ere I had reached my sixtieth year.

The earth keeps some vibration going

There in your heart, and that is you. And if the people find you can fiddle, Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. What do you see, a harvest of clover? Or a meadow to walk through to the river?

The earth keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you.

And if the people find you can fiddle,

Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. What do you see, a harvest of clover? Or a meadow to walk through to the river? The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands For beeves hereafter ready for market;

But I tortured it, I poisoned it, I blinded its eyes, and it became hatred— Deadly ivy instead of clematis. And my soul fell from its support, Its tendrils tangled in decay.

Do not let the will play gardener to your soul

Unless you are sure It is wiser than your soul’s nature.

For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment; Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid; Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances. Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.

And now I know that we must lift the sail

And catch the winds of destiny Wherever they drive the boat. To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire— It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances. Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life. And now I know that we must lift the sail And catch the winds of destiny Wherever they drive the boat.

To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,

But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire— It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

And now I know that we must lift the sail And catch the winds of destiny Wherever they drive the boat. To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire—

It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

It never came into my mind Until I was ready to die That Jenny had loved me to death, with malice of heart.

The cooper should know about tubs. But I learned about life as well, And you who loiter around these graves Think you know life. You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps,

In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub.

You cannot lift yourself to its rim And see the outer world of things, And at the same time see yourself. You are submerged in the tub of yourself— Taboos and rules and appearances, Are the staves of your tub.

One thing I will tell you And one I will ask: The stealers of husbands Wear powder and trinkets, And fashionable hats.

Wives, wear them yourselves.

Hats may make divorces— They also prevent them. Well now, let me ask you: If all of the children, born here in Spoon River Had been reared by the County, somewhere on a farm;

The bar association sang my praises In a high-flown resolution. And the floral tributes were many— But the rats devoured my heart

And a snake made a nest in my skull!

I, born in Weimar Of a mother who was French And German father, a most learned professor, Orphaned at fourteen years, Became a dancer, known as Russian Sonia, All up and down the boulevards of Paris, Mistress betimes of sundry dukes and counts, And later …

The secret of the stars—gravitation. The secret of the earth—layers of rock. The secret of the soil—to receive seed. The secret of the seed—the germ. The secret of man—the sower. The secret of woman—the soil.

My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find.

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.

Daily I search the realms of Hades For the soul of the hawk, That I may offer him the friendship Of one whom life wounded and caged.

In youth my wings were strong and tireless,

But I did not know the mountains. In age I knew the mountains But my weary wings could not follow my vision— Genius is wisdom and youth.

In youth my wings were strong and tireless, But I did not know the mountains. In age I knew the mountains But my weary wings could not follow my vision—

Genius is wisdom and youth.

After you have enriched your soul To the highest point, With books, thought, suffering, the understanding of many personalities, The power to interpret glances, silences, The pauses in momentous transformations, The genius of divination and prophecy;

And long after other eyes can see You have woven a moon-white strip of cloth, You laugh in your strength, for Hope o’erlays it With shapes of love and beauty.

The loom stops short! The pattern’s out! You’re alone in the room! You have woven a shroud!

And hate of it lays you in it!

When Kinsey Keene drove through The card-board mask of my life with a spear of light, What could I do but slink away, like the beast of myself Which I raised from a whelp, to a corner and growl.

The pyramid of my life was nought but a dune,

Barren and formless, spoiled at last by the storm.

“You drunken Oscar Hummel,” he said, As I stood there weaving to and fro, Taking the blows from the stick in his hand Till I dropped down dead at his feet.

She loved me. Oh! how she loved me!

I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me. But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out, Or she might divorce me. But few die, none resign.

She loved me. Oh! how she loved me! I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me. But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out, Or she might divorce me.

But few die, none resign.

Then I ran away and was gone a year on a lark. But she never complained. She said all would be well, That I would return. And I did return.

And rents and patches widen with time; No thread or needle can pace decay, And there are stains that baffle soap, And there are colors that run in spite of you, Blamed though you are for spoiling a dress. Handkerchiefs, napery, have their secrets—

The laundress, Life, knows all about it.

And I, who went to all the funerals Held in Spoon River, swear I never Saw a dead face without thinking it looked Like something washed and ironed.

And they married madly, helter-skelter, Just to get out and have a change.

And what was the whole of the business worth? Why, it wasn’t worth a damn!

I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins, Born in a cottage near the grist-mill, Reared in the mansion there on the hill, With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate. How proud my mother was of the mansion!

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 sprang.

No one cares now where I dined,

Or lived, or whom I entertained, Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden!

And all Spoon River watched and waited To see it work, but it never worked. And a few kind souls believed my genius Was somehow hampered by the store. It wasn’t true. The truth was this:

I didn’t have the brains.

I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard, For I tried the rights of property, Although by lamp-light, for thirty years, In that poker room in the opera house.

I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard, For I tried the rights of property, Although by lamp-light, for thirty years, In that poker room in the opera house.

And I say to you that Life’s a gambler

Head and shoulders above us all. No mayor alive can close the house. And if you lose, you can squeal as you will; You’ll not get back your money. He makes the percentage hard to conquer;

He stacks the cards to catch your weakness And not to meet your strength. And he gives you seventy years to play: For if you cannot win in seventy You cannot win at all. So, if you lose, get out of the room—

Get out of the room when your time is up.

It’s mean to sit and fumble the cards, And curse your losses, leaden-eyed, Whining to try and try.

I poured the chloroform on a handkerchief And held it to her nose till she died.— Oh Delia, Delia, you and Proudhon Steadied my hand, and the coroner Said she died of heart failure. I married Delia and got the money—

A joke on you, Spoon River?

I would I had thrust my hands of flesh Into the disk-flowers bee-infested, Into the mirror-like core of fire Of the light of life, the sun of delight. For what are anthers worth or petals Or halo-rays?

And out in the cold stood all my followers: Young idealists, broken warriors Hobbling on one crutch of hope— Souls that staked their all on the truth, Losers of worlds at heaven’s bidding, Watching the Devil kick the Millennium Over the Golden Mountain.

Horses and men are just alike.

There was my stallion, Billy Lee, Black as a cat and trim as a deer, With an eye of fire, keen to start, And he could hit the fastest speed Of any racer around Spoon River.

To whom would your flower-face have been lifted? Botanist, weakling? Cry of what blood to yours?— Pure or foul, for it makes no matter, It’s blood that calls to our blood. And then your children—oh, what might they be? And what your sorrow? Child! Child!

Death is better than Life!

We stand about this place—we, the memories; And shade our eyes because we dread to read: “June 17th, 1884, aged 21 years and 3 days.” And all things are changed.

And beastly acts between ourselves or alone, With bullying, hatred, degradation among us, And days of loathing and nights of fear To the hour of the charge through the steaming swamp, Following the flag, Till I fell with a scream, shot through the guts.

Now there’s a flag over me in Spoon River!

A flag! A flag!

Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music; “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation Shining with justice and truth.

I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,

Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation. Bloom forever, O Republic, From the dust of my bosom!

Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation Shining with justice and truth. I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation.

Bloom forever, O Republic,

From the dust of my bosom!

Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music;

“With malice toward none, with charity for all.”

Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation Shining with justice and truth. I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation.

As a last attempt I turned to a guard and said: “Please say it’s old Aunt Hannah Armstrong From Illinois, come to see him about her sick boy In the army.”

Well, just in a moment they let me in!

And when he saw me he broke in a laugh, And dropped his business as president, And wrote in his own hand Doug’s discharge, Talking the while of the early days, And telling stories.

At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all, And passed to a sweet repose. What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Anger, discontent and drooping hopes? Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you—

It takes life to love Life.

Suppose it is nothing but the hive:

I might as well have cursed the stars. In my last sickness I was in agony, but I was resolute And I cursed God for my suffering; Still He paid no attention to me; He left me alone, as He had always done.

I might as well have cursed the Presbyterian steeple.

Then, as I grew weaker, a terror came over me: Perhaps I had alienated God by cursing him.

At last when I came to lie in bed Weak and in pain, with the dreams about me,

The soul of the river had entered my soul,

And the gathered power of my soul was moving So swiftly it seemed to be at rest Under cities of cloud and under Spheres of silver and changing worlds— Until I saw a flash of trumpets Above the battlements over Time!