Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, ti… Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a… Faint iambics that the full breeze… But the pine tree makes a symphony… Triolets, villanelles, rondels, ro…

To all in the village I seemed, n… To go this way and that way, aimle… But here by the river you can see… The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag h… They must fly so to catch their fo…

I wanted to go away to college But rich Aunt Persis wouldn’t hel… So I made gardens and raked the l… And bought John Alden’s books wit… And toiled for the very means of l…

(Europe Conquers America.) Strong for the strong and in his o… Half-boy, half-madman, playing wit… Usurper, hoodlum, wed to his desir… Loud in the hunt—afraid albeit to…

’Twas the shrunken soul of the tra… That whined in a coign of the dark… And the fiends were aroused from s… When Cerberus began to bark. ‘Methought that I spoke’ said Jul…

I was well known and much beloved And rich, as fortunes are reckoned In Spoon River, where I had live… That was the home for me, Though all my children had flown a…

Why was I not devoured by self-co… And rotted down by indifference And impotent revolt like Indignat… Why, with all of my errant steps Did I miss the fate of Willard F…

I made two fights for the people. First I left my party, bearing th… Of independence, for reform, and w… Next I used my rebel strength To capture the standard of my old…

Everyone laughed at Col. Prichard For buying an engine so powerful That it wrecked itself, and wrecke… He ran it with. But here is a joke of cosmic size:

Here I lie close to the grave Of Old Bill Piersol, Who grew rich trading with the ind… Afterwards took the bankrupt law And emergeed from it richer than e…

When I first came to Spoon River I did not know whether what they t… Was true or false. They would bring me an epitaph And stand around the shop while I…

My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed sca… Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we—we married ones

Mr Kessler, you know, was in the… And he drew six dollars a month as… And stood on the corner talking po… Or sat at home reading Grant’s Me… And I supported the family by was…

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…

You would not believe, would you That I came from good Welsh stock… That I was purer blooded than the… And of more direct lineage than th… And Virginians of Spoon River?