I belonged to the church, And to the party of prohibition; And the villagers thought I died… In truth I had cirrhosis of the l… For every noon for thirty years,

Not in that wasted garden Where bodies are drawn into grass That feeds no flocks, and into eve… That bear no fruit— There where along the shaded walks

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…

After you have enriched your soul To the highest point, With books, thought, suffering, th… The power to interpret glances, si… The pauses in momentous transforma…

Is it true, Spoon River, That in the hall-way of the New C… There is a tablet of bronze Containing the embossed faces Of Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhod…

Once in a while a curious weed unk… Needing a name from my books; Once in a while a letter from Yeo… Out of the mussel-shells gathered… Sometimes a pearl with a glint lik…

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…

I winged my bird, Though he flew toward the setting… But just as the shot rang out, he… Up and up through the splinters of… Till he turned right over, feather…

When Reuben Pantier ran away and… I went to Springfield. There I m… Whose father just deceased left hi… He married me when drunk. My life… A year passed and one day they fou…

Back and forth, back and forth, to… With my Bible under my arm Till I was gray and old; Unwedded, alone in the world, Finding brothers and sisters in th…

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,

I was the Sunday school superinte… The dummy president of the wagon w… And the canning factory, Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the… My son the cashier of the bank,

I staggered on through darkness, There was a hazy sky, a few stars Which I followed as best I could. It was nine o’clock, I was trying… But somehow I was lost,

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…

In the last spring I ever knew, In those last days, I sat in the forsaken orchard Where beyond fields of greenery sh… The hills at Miller’s Ford;