Robert Fulton Tanner - Spoon River

Serepta Mason - Spoon River

Serepta Mason - Spoon River

Cassius Hueffer - Spoon River

Cassius Hueffer - Spoon River

Robert Fulton Tanner - Spoon River

Robert Fulton Tanner - Spoon River

Fletcher McGee

Fletcher McGeeSHE took my strength by minutes,She took my life by hours,She drained me like a fevered moonThat saps the spinning world.The days went by like shadows,The minutes wheeled like stars.She took the pity from my heart,And made it into smiles.She was a hunk of sculptor’s clay,My secret thoughts were fingers:They flew behind her pensive browAnd lined it deep with pain.They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks,And drooped the eyes with sorrow.My soul had entered in the clay,Fighting like seven devils.It was not mine, it was not hers;She held it, but its strugglesModeled a face she hated,And a face I feared to see.I beat the windows, shook the bolts.I hid me in a corner—And then she died and haunted me,And hunted me for life.

Ollie McGee - Spoon River

3. Ollie McGeeHAVE you seen walking through the villageA man with downcast eyes and haggard face?That is my husband who, by secret crueltyNever to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty;Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth,And with broken pride and shameful humility,I sank into the grave.But what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart?The face of what I was, the face of what he made me!These are driving him to the place where I lie.In death, therefore, I am avenged.