Spoon River Anthology Quotes

To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.

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.

The tongue may be an unruly member-- But silence poisons the soul.

In time you shall see Fate approach you In the shape of your own image in the mirror.

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.

the much-sought prize of eternal youth Is just arrested growth.

And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle— And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.

There is no marriage in Heaven, but there is love.

Act well your part, there all the honor lies.

I tramped through the country To get the feeling That I was not a separate thing from the earth. I used to lose myself By lying with eyes half-open in the woods. Sometimes I talked with animals…

This is life's sorrow: That one can be happy only where two are; And that our hearts are drawn to stars Which want us not.

Back of every soldier is a woman.

Viandante, amare è ritrovare la propria anima traverso l'anima dell'amato. Quando l'amato se ne stacca, allora tu l'hai perduta. È scritto: "Ho un amico, ma il mio dolore non ha amici".

And then I knew I was one of Life's fools, Whom only death would treat as the equal Of other men

Remember the acorn; It does not devour other acorns.

Thou wert wise to chisel for me: «Taken from the evil to come».

Passer-by, To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one. -- quoted from Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology

Suppose a boy steals an apple From the tray at the grocery store, And they all begin to call him a thief, The editor, minister, judge, and all the people – «A thief», «a thief», «a thief», wherever he goes. And he can't get work, and he can't get bread Without stealing it, why the boy will steal. It's the way people regard the theft of an apple That makes the boy what he is.

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 the spirit, peace. There is no marriage in heaven, But there is love.

KNOWLT HOHEIMER I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge. When I felt the bullet water 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 country jail That to lie under his marble figure with wings, And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, «Pro Patria». What do they mean, anyway?

At last you get in – but you hear a step: The ogre, Life, comes into the room, (He was waiting and heard the clang of the spring) To watch you nibble the wondrous cheese, And stare with his burning eyes at you, And scowl and laugh, and mock and curse you, Running up and down in the trap, Until your misery bores him.

FIDDLER JONES 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 the market; Or else you hear the rustle of skirts. Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove. To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth; They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy Stepping it off, to Toor-a-Loor. How could I till my forty acres Not to speak of getting more, With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos Stirred in my brain by crows and robins And the creak of a will-mill – only these? And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle – And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.

But a man can never avenge himself on the monstrous ogre Life.

Their spirits beat upon mine Like the wings of a thousand butterflies. I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating. I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes

Whenever the Presbyterian bell Was rung by itself, I knew it as the Presbyterian bell. But when its sound was mingled With the sound of the Methodist, the Christian, The Baptist and the Congregational, I could no longer distinguish it. Nor any one from the others, or either of them.

Margaret Fuller Slack I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep—set eyes— Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me, Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel, And I married him, giving birth to eight children, And had no time to write. It was all over with me, anyway, When I ran the needle in my hand While washing the baby’s things, And died from lock—jaw, an ironical death. Hear me, ambitious souls, Sex is the curse of life.

There is something about Death Like love itself! If with some one with whom you have known passion, And the glow of youthful love, You also, after years of life Together, feel the sinking of the fire, And thus fade away together, Gradually, faintly, delicately, As it were in each other's arms, Passing from the familiar room- That is a power of unison between souls Like love itself!

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 you wondered in a trance of thought What he knew, what he desired, and why he lived at all.

Минерва Джоунс Минерва, селската поетеса съм аз, осмивана, подигравана от местните дебелаци заради тежко тяло, кривогледи очи и тромав вървеж, особено когато Уелди Касапчето ме хвана накрая след бясна гонитба. Изоставена със злочестината си в ръцете на д-р Мейърс, бавно затъвах в смъртта, плъзнала нагоре по скованите ми нозе, като човек, който нагазва все по-дълбоко в леден поток. Ще порови ли някой в селския вестник, ще събера ли в книга стиховете, които съм отпечатала? Бях толкова жадна за обич! И на живот - ненаситна!

Mentre la baciavo con l’anima sulle labbra, l’anima d’improvviso mi fuggì

SAMUEL GARDNER I who kept the greenhouse, Lover of trees and flowers, Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm, Measuring its generous branches with my eye, And listened to its rejoicing leaves Lovingly patting each other With sweet aeolian whispers. And well they might: For the roots had grown so wide and deep That the soil of the hill could not withhold Aught of its virtue, enriched by rain, And warmed by the sun; But yielded it all to the thrifty roots, Through which it was drawn and whirled to the trunk, And thence to the branches, and into the leaves, Wherefrom the breeze took life and sang. Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can see That the branches of a tree Spread no wider than its roots. And how shall the soul of a man Be larger than the life he has lived?

We'd been discussing Spoon River Anthology -- a womanly discussion about life and legacy and the bottomless currents that burble beneath even the simplest existence. That's Harriet's word: burble. We'd been reading aloud, back and forth, remarking how the characters chose to record their brief time in this ever-moving stream. A few tried to capture the whole winding length of it, but most settled on the rocks and ripples -- a moment, a day, an especially fraught or tender time. Some recalled their death, some their life. Some relived their worst, some their best. All of them, though (Harriet and I both noticed this), seemed compelled to make some sort of accounting, convincing those still living that they, too, had lived, and not in vain.

O world, that's you! You are but a widened place in the river Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her Mirrored in us, and so we dream And turn away

EMILY SPARKS Dov'è il mio bambino, il mio bambino - in quale remota parte del mondo? il bambino che a scuola amavo più di tutti?- Io, la maestra, la vecchia zitella, il vergine cuore, che li sentivo tutti miei figli. M'ingannai col mio bambino a giudicarlo uno spirito ardente, attivo, mai pago? Oh bambino, bambino, per cui pregai e pregai in tante ore di veglia la notte, ricordi la lettera che ti scrissi sulla bellezza dell'amore di Cristo? E che tu che l'abbia ricevuta o no, bambino mio, dovunque tu sia, opera per la salvezza dell'anima tua, che tutto il fango, tutta la feccia in te, ceda finalmente al fuoco che è in te, finché il fuoco sia solo luce!... Solo luce!

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.

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 forsts 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 ool Stopping to club the walnuts 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 reams of life. They hover over me.

To all in the village I seemed, no doubt, To go this way and that way, aimlesssly. But here by the river you can see at twilight The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there- They must fly so to catch their food. And if you have ever lost your way at night In the deep wood near Miller's Ford, And dodged this way and now that, Wherever the light of the Milky Way shone through, Trying to find the path, You should understand I sought the way With earnest zeal, and all my wanderings Were wanderings in the quest.

I sat under my cedar tree. My mate, the mother of them, was taken- I sat under my cedar tree, Till ninety years were tolled. O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep!

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 nto follow my vision- Genius is wisdom and youth.

I bought every kind of machine that's known- Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers, Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers- And all of them stood in the rain and sun, Getting rusted, warped and battered, For I had no sheds to store them in, And no use for most of them. And toward the last, when I thought it over, There by my window, growing clearer About myself, as my pulse slowed down, And looked at one of the mills I bought- Which I didn't have the slightest need of, As things turned out, and I never ran- A fine machine, once brightly varnished, And eager to do its work, Now with its paint washed off- I saw myself as a good machine That Life had never used.

With shells from the river cover me, cover me. I lived in wonder, worshipping earth and heaven. I have passed on the march eternal of endless life.

In the last spring I ever knew, In those last days, I sat in the forsaken orchard Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered The hills at Miller's Ford; Just to muse on the apple tree With its ruined trunk and blasted branches, And shoots of green whose delicate blossoms Were sprinkled over the skeleton tangle, Never to grow in fruit. And there was I with my spirit girded By the flesh half dead, the senses numb, Yet thinking of youth and the earth in youth,- Such phantom blossoms palely shining Over the lifeless boughs of Time. O earth that leaves us ere heaven takes us! Had I been only a tree to shiver With dreams of spring and a leafy youth, Then I had fallen in the cyclone Which swept me out of the soul's suspense Where it's neither earth nor heaven.

But instead I mounted a little in life, And I owe it all to a book I read. But why did I go to Mason City, Where I chanced to see the book in a window, With its garish cover luring my eye? And why did my soul respond to the book, As I read it over and over?

Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can see That the branches of a tree Spread no wider than its roots. And how shall the soul of a man Be larger than the life he has lived?

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.

FALLAS, IL PROCURATORE DI STATO Io, che brandivo il flagello, che spaccavo le bilance, che percuotevo con fruste e spade; io, che odiavo i contravventori della legge; io, il legalista, inesorabile e amaro, che spinsi i giurati a impiccare quel pazzo di Barry Holden, divenni come uno ucciso da una luce troppo abbagliante, e mi svegliai in faccia a una Verità dalla fronte sanguigna; forcipi d'acciaio maneggiati malamente da un dottore contro la testa del mio bimbo che nasceva lo resero idiota. Per curarlo e accudirlo mi diedi a libri di scienza. Ecco come il mondo di coloro che hanno mente malata divenne il mio compito e tutto il mio mondo. Povero ragazzo distrutto! Tu fosti, alla fine, il vasaio, ed io, in tutti i miei atti di carità, il vaso sotto le tue mani.

Seurasinko totuutta, minne ikinä se johtikin, uhmasinko koko maailmaa sen puolesta ja autoinko heikkoja väkeviä vastaan? Jos tein niin, minut tullaan muistamaan ihmisten keskuudessa sellaisena kuin olin ja minä minua rakastettiin ja vihattiin elämässä. Sen vuoksi, älkää pystyttäkö minulle muistomerkkiä, älkää veistäkö kuvaa minusta ettei - vaikken tulisikaan puolijumalaksi - todellinen olemukseni unohtuisi niin että varkaat ja valehtelijat, jotka olivat vihollisiani ja tuhosivat elämäni, tai varkaiden ja valehtelijoiden lapset voisi tulla väittämään minua omakseen ja kuvani edessä seisten vakuuttamaan seisoneensa rinnallani tappioni päivinä. Älkää pystyttäkö minulle muistomerkkiä, ettei muistoani väärinkäytettäisi valheen ja sorron hyväksi. Minua ei saa ryöstää niiltä jotka rakastivat minua eikä heidän lapsiltaan ; minä haluan ikuisesti ja tahrattomana kuulua niille joiden puolesta elin. Herman Altman

If I had lived in the early days When there was no telephone, Nor even a telegraph; And all the trains were slow, And the mails came once a week; I might have believed he wrote me a letter, And that the letter was lost. But just as the chances of not hearing Are lessened by mails and telegraphs, Suspicion in you increases. So the soul goes down as machines go up...” Edgar Lee Masters, "The New Spoon River," monthly V.F. column reprising his 1914 Spoon River Anthology, July 1923