Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950 / Kansas / United States)

poet Edgar Lee Masters
#255 on top 500 poets

Quotations

  • ''Out of me unworthy and unknown
    The vibrations of deathless music;''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Anne Rutledge (Spoon River Anthology) (l. 1-2). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    6 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • ''I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,
    Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,
    Wedded to him, not through union,
    But through separation''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Anne Rutledge (Spoon River Anthology) (l. 7-10). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    5 person liked.
    		2 person did not like.
  • ''The eye-balls were seared with a milky mucus;
    The madness of a dying soul
    Was written on her face—
    But the multitude saw why she wore the bandage."''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Carl Hamblin (Spoon River Anthology). . . Oxford Book of Satirical Verse, The. Geoffrey Grigson, comp. (1980) Oxford University Press.
    5 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • ''To be an editor, as I was.
    Then to lie here close by the river over the place
    Where the sewage flows from the village,
    And the empty cans and garbage are dumped,
    And abortions are hidden.''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Editor Whedon (Spoon River Anthology) (l. 21-25). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    6 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.
  • ''To be able to see every side of every question;
    To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long;
    To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose,

    To use great feelings and passions of the human family
    For base designs, for cunning ends;''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Editor Whedon (Spoon River Anthology) (l. 1-5). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    2 person liked.
    		3 person did not like.
  • ''Degenerate sons and daughters,
    Life is too strong for you—
    It takes life to love Life.''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Lucinda Matlock (Spoon River Anthology). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    3 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''by Spoon Rivergathering many a shell,
    And many a flower and medicinal weed—
    Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
    At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
    And passed to a sweet repose.''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Lucinda Matlock (Spoon River Anthology). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    2 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''Woodlands, meadows,streams and rivers—
    Blind to all of it all my life long.
    Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
    Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Petit the Poet (Spoon River Anthology) (l. 13-16). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    2 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''Ballades by the score with the same old thought:
    The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;
    And what is love but a rose that fades?''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. Petit the Poet (Spoon River Anthology) (l. 6-8). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    2 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • ''Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago,
    Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary's Grove,
    Of what Abe Lincoln said
    One time at Springfield.''
    Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet. The Hill (Spoon River Anthology) (l. 34-37). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    2 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.

Read more quotations »

Elliott Hawkins

I looked like Abraham Lincoln.
I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship,
But standing for the rights of property and for order.
A regular church attendant,
Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you
Against the evils of discontent and envy,
And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union,
And to point to the peril of the Knights of Labor.
My success and my example are inevitable influences

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