Better than granite, Spoon River,
Is the memory-picture you keep of me
Standing before the pioneer men and women
There at Concord Church on Communion day.
Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth
Of Galilee who went to the city
And was killed by bankers and lawyers;
My voice mingling with the June wind
That blew over wheat fields from Atterbury;
While the white stones in the burying ground
Around the Church shimmered in the summer sun.
And there, though my own memories
Were too great to bear, were you, O pioneers,

At four years Nature is mountainous,
Mysterious, and submarine. Even

A city child knows this, hearing the subway's
Rumor underground. Between the grate,

Dropping his penny, he learned out all loss,
The irretrievable cent of fate,

And now this newest of the mysteries,
Confronts his honest and his studious eyes----

His mother much too fat and absentminded,
Gazing past his face, careless of him,

His fume, his charm, his bedtime, and warm milk,
As soon the night will be too dark, the spring

I love a man who'll smile and joke
When with misfortune crowned;
Who'll pun beneath a pauper's yoke,
And as he breaks his daily toke,
Conundrums gay propound.

Just such a man was Bernaqrd Jupp
He scoffed at Fortune's frown;
He gaily drained his bitter cup -
Though Fortune often threw him up,
It never cast him down.

Though years their share of sorrow bring,
We know that far above
All other griefs, are griefs that spring
From some misfortune happening
To those we really love.

E'en sorrow for another's woe

I’d heard fool-heroes brag of where they’d been,
With stories of the glories that they’d seen.
But you, good simple soldier, seasoned well
In woods and posts and crater-lines of hell,
Who dodge remembered ‘crumps’ with wry grimace,
Endured experience in your queer, kind face,
Fatigues and vigils haunting nerve-strained eyes,
And both your brothers killed to make you wise;
You had no babbling phrases; what you said
Was like a message from the maimed and dead.
But memory brought the voice I knew, whose note

Little Ann and her mother were walking one day
Through London's wide city so fair,
And business obliged them to go by the way
That led them through Cavendish Square.
And as they pass'd by the great house of a Lord,
A beautiful chariot there came,
To take some most elegant ladies abroad,
Who straightway got into the same.

The ladies in feathers and jewels were seen,
The chariot was painted all o'er,
The footmen behind were in silver and green,
The horses were prancing before.

Little Ann by her mother walk'd silent and sad,

A little child stood thinking, sorrowfully and ill at ease,
In a forest beneath the branches of the tall pine trees -
And his big brown eyes with tears seemed dim,
While one soft arm rested on a huge dog close by him.

And only four summers had passed o'er his baby head,
And, poor little child, his twin brother was dead,
Who had died but a few days before,
And now he must play alone, for he'd see him no more.

And for many generations 'tis said for a truth
That the eldest bairn of the Cronberg family died early in youth,

'Twas Christmastide in Germany,
And in the year of 1850,
And in the city of Berlin, which is most beautiful to the eye;
A poor boy was heard calling out to passers-by.
"Who'll buy my pretty figures," loudly he did cry,
Plaster of Paris figures, but no one inclined to buy;
His clothes were thin and he was nearly frozen with cold,
And wholly starving with hunger, a pitiful sight to behold.

And the twilight was giving place to the shadows of approaching night,
And those who possessed a home were seeking its warmth and light;

Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands!
Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands!
He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud,
And departed in guise of bairagi avowed!

Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet.
The sal and the kikar must guard him from heat.
His home is the camp, and waste, and the crowd --
He is seeking the Way as bairagi avowed!

He has looked upon Man, and his eyeballs are clear --
(There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir);

The line breaks and the guns go under,
The lords and the lackeys ride the plain;
I draw deep breaths of the dawn and thunder,
And the whole of my heart grows young again.
For our chiefs said 'Done,' and I did not deem it;
Our seers said 'Peace,' and it was not peace;
Earth will grow worse till men redeem it,
And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.
But the old flags reel and the old drums rattle,
As once in my life they throbbed and reeled;
I have found my youth in the lost battle,
I have found my heart on the battlefield.

'Twas in the United States of America some years ago
An aged father sat at his fireside with his heart full of woe,
And talking to his neighbour, Mr Allan, about his boy Bennie
That was to be shot because found asleep doing sentinel duty.

"Inside of twenty-four hours, the telegram said,
And, oh! Mr Allan, he's dead, I am afraid.
Where is my brave Bennie now to me is a mystery."
"We will hope with his heavenly Father," said Mr Allen, soothingly.

"Yes, let us hope God is very merciful," said Mr Allan.