Edgar Lee Masters

From Wikiquote

Edgar Lee Masters (23 August 1868 - 5 March 1950) was an American poet, biographer and dramatist. He is best known for the Spoon River Anthology.

[edit] Sourced

• In my Spanish cloak,
  And old slouch hat,
  And overshoes of felt,
  And Tyke, my faithful dog,
  And my knotted hickory cane,
  I slipped about with a bull's-eye lantern
  From door to door on the square
  • Poem: Andy the Night-Watch

• Blind as I was, I tried to get out
  As the carriage fell in the ditch,
  And was caught in the wheels and killed.
  • Poem: Blind Jack

• Go by reverently, and read with sober care
  How a great people, riding with defiant shouts
  The centaur of Revolution,
  Spurred and whipped to frenzy,
  Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea
  Over the precipice they were nearing,
  And fell from his back in precipitate awe
  To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being.
  • Poem: Captain Orlando Killion

• And when you are poor and have to carry
  The Christian creed and wife and children
  All on your back, it is too much!
  That's why I made the Elixir of Youth,
  Which landed me in the jail at Peoria
  Branded a swindler and a crook
  By the upright Federal Judge!
  • Poem: Dr. Siegfried Iseman

• You may think, passer-by, that Fate
  Is a pit-fall outside of yourself,
  Around which you may walk by the use of foresight
  And wisdom.
  • Poem: Lyman King

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