Passages from Spoon River Anthology

The cost of constant spiritual dominance is rarely visible, but it is always paid.

I grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men.If I saw a soul that was strongI wounded its pride and devoured its strength.The shelters of friendship knew my cunning,For where I could steal a friend I did so.And wherever I could enlarge my powerBy undermining ambition, I did so,Thus to make smooth my own.And to triumph over other souls,Just to assert and prove my superior strength,Was with me a delight,The keen exhilaration of soul gymnastics.Devouring souls, I should have lived forever.

You can pour your best beliefs into a man and lose them.

I spent my money trying to elect you MayorA. D. Blood.I lavished my admiration upon you,You were to my mind the almost perfect man.You devoured my personality,And the idealism of my youth,And the strength of a high-souled fealty.And all my hopes for the world,And all my beliefs in Truth,Were smelted up in the blinding heatOf my devotion to you,And molded into your image.And then when I found what you were:

The ghosts of unfulfilled dreams still linger in the quiet corners of our lives.

Together in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law,And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend.Down the gray road, friends, children, men and women,Passing one by one out of life, left me till I was aloneWith Nig for partner, bed-fellow, comrade in drink.In the morning of life I knew aspiration and saw glory,Then she, who survives me, snared my soulWith a snare which bled me to death,Till I, once strong of will, lay broken, indifferent,Living with Nig in a room back of a dingy office.Under my jawbone is snuggled the bony nose of Nig—Our story is lost in silence. Go by, mad world!

He let fear answer love, sorrow and ambition—then asked what meaning costs.

In truth it pictures not my destinationBut my life.For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.And now I know that we must lift the sailAnd catch the winds of destinyWherever they drive the boat.To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire—It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

One lens at a time, the world becomes something else.

What do you see now?Globes of red, yellow, purple.Just a moment! And now?My father and mother and sisters.Yes! And now?Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces.Try this.A field of grain—a city.Very good! And now?A young woman with angels bending over her.A heavier lens! And now?Many women with bright eyes and open lips.Try this.Just a goblet on a table.

What time does to cloth, it also does to faces.

For things that are new grow old at length,They’re replaced with better or none at all:People are prospering or falling back.And rents and patches widen with time;No thread or needle can pace decay,And there are stains that baffle soap,And there are colors that run in spite of you,Blamed though you are for spoiling a dress.Handkerchiefs, napery, have their secrets—The laundress, Life, knows all about it.And I, who went to all the funeralsHeld in Spoon River, swear I neverSaw a dead face without thinking it lookedLike something washed and ironed.

Sometimes the story written on your gravestone is a cold, hard lie.

Henry got me with child,Knowing that I could not bring forth lifeWithout losing my own.In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.Traveler, it is believed in the village where I livedThat Henry loved me with a husband’s loveBut I proclaim from the dustThat he slew me to gratify his hatred.