Work poems
/ page 288 of 355 /
O Glorious France
© Edgar Lee Masters
You have become a forge of snow-white fire,
A crucible of molten steel, O France!
Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn
And fade in light for you, O glorious France!
Daisy Fraser
© Edgar Lee Masters
Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon
Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received
For supporting candidated for office?
Or for writing up the canning factory
Elsa Wertman
© Edgar Lee Masters
I was a peasant girl from Germany,
Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong.
And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene's.
On a summer's day when she was away
Franklin Jones
© Edgar Lee Masters
If I could have lived another year
I could have finished my flying machine,
And become rich and famous.
Hence it is fitting the workman
Thursos Landing
© Robinson Jeffers
In the night Reave dreamed that Helen
Lay with him in the deep grave, he awoke loathing her,
But when the weak moment between sleep and waking
Was past, his need of her and his judgment of her
Knew their suspended duel; and he heard her breathing,
Irregularly, gently in the dark.
Melville And Coghill - The Place Of The Little Hand
© Andrew Lang
DEAD, with their eyes to the foe,
Dead, with the foe at their feet;
Justice Arnett
© Edgar Lee Masters
It is true, fellow citizens,
That my old docket lying there for years
On a shelf above my head and over
The seat of justice, I say it is true
Bacchanalia or The New Age
© Matthew Arnold
The world but feels the present's spell,
The poet feels the past as well;
Whatever men have done, might do,
Whatever thought, might think it too.
Abel Melveny
© Edgar Lee Masters
I bought every kind of machine that's known --
Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers,
Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers --
And all of them stood in the rain and sun,
Hannah Armstrong
© Edgar Lee Masters
I wrote him a letter asking him for old times' sake
To discharge my sick boy from the army;
But maybe he couldn't read it.
Then I went to town and had James Garber,
Cooney Potter
© Edgar Lee Masters
I inherited forty acres from my Father
And, by working my wife, my two sons and two daughters
From dawn to dusk, I acquired
A thousand acres. But not content,
The Game Of Chess
© Ezra Pound
DOGMATIC STATEMENT CONCERNING THE GAME OF CHESS:
THEME FOR A SERIES OF PICTURES
Sersmith the Dentist
© Edgar Lee Masters
Do you think that odes and sermons,
And the ringing of church bells,
And the blood of old men and young men,
Martyred for the truth they saw
The Latest Chinese Outrage
© Francis Bret Harte
It was noon by the sun; we had finished our game,
And was passin' remarks goin' back to our claim;
Bacchus: Or, The Vines Of Lesbos
© Thomas Parnell
As Bacchus ranging at his leisure,
(Io Bacchus! king of pleasure)
Charm'd the wide world with drink and dances,
And all his thousand airy fancies;
Alas! he quite forgot the while
His fav'rite vines in Lesbos isle.
Emily Sparks
© Edgar Lee Masters
Where is my boy, my boy --
In what far part of the world?
The boy I loved best of all in the school? --
I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart,
A.D. Blood
© Edgar Lee Masters
If you in the village think that my work was a good one,
Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards,
And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett,
In many a crusade to purge the people of sin;
Butch Weldy
© Edgar Lee Masters
After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
Richard Bone
© Edgar Lee Masters
When I first came to Spoon River
I did not know whether what they told me
Was true or false.
They would bring me an epitaph
