Neither spite, fellow citizens, Nor forgetfulness of the shiftless… And the lawlessness and waste Under democracy’s rule in Spoon R… Made me desert the party of law an…

Take note, passers-by, of the shar… Eaten in my head-stone by the wind… Almost as if an intangible Nemesi… Were marking scores against me, But to destroy, and not preserve,…

When I went to the city, Mary Mc… I meant to return for you, yes I… But Laura, my landlady’s daughter… Stole into my life somehow, and wo… Then after some years whom should…

The sudden death of Eugene Carman Put me in line to be promoted to f… And I told my wife and children t… But it didn’t come, and so I thou… Old Rhodes suspected me of steali…

Do you remember, passer-by, the pa… I wore across the lot where now st… Hasting with swift feet to work th… Take its meaning to heart: You too may walk, after the hills…

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…

How many times, during the twenty… I was your leader, friends of Spo… Did you neglect the convention and… And leave the burden on my hands Of guarding and saving the people’…

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,…

While I was handling Dom Pedro I got at the thing that divides th… For singing “Turkey in the straw”… (Like Rile Potter used to sing it… For cards, or for Rev. Peet’s lec…

In my Spanish cloak, And old slouch hat, And overshoes of felt, And Tyke, my faithful dog, And my knotted hickory cane,

He protested all his life long The newspapers lied about him vill… That he was not at fault for Mine… But only tried to help her. Poor soul so sunk in sin he could…

I was not beloved of the villagers… But all because I spoke my mind, And met those who transgressed aga… With plain remonstrance, hiding no… Nor secret griefs nor grudges.

’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 began with Sir William Hamilto… Then studied Dugald Stewart; And then John Locke on the Under… And then Descartes, Fichte and S… Kant and then Schopenhauer—

To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of trut… It may serve a turn in your life. My husband had nothing to do With the fall of the bank—he was o…