Spoon River Anthology - Penn State University

Edgar Lee Masters
‘Mid cries and curses; but the liberals laughed
And in the hall of Nicholas Bindle held
Wise converse and inspiriting debate.
High on a stage that overlooked the chairs
Where dozens sat, and where a pop—eyed daub
Of Shakespeare, very like the hired man
Of Christian Dallman, brow and pointed beard,
Upon a drab proscenium outward stared,
Sat Harmon Whitney, to that eminence,
By merit raised in ribaldry and guile,
And to the assembled rebels thus he spake:
“Whether to lie supine and let a clique
Cold-blooded, scheming, hungry, singing psalms,
Devour our substance, wreck our banks and drain
Our little hoards for hazards on the price
Of wheat or pork, or yet to cower beneath
The shadow of a spire upreared to curb
A breed of lackeys and to serve the bank
Coadjutor in greed, that is the question.
Shall we have music and the jocund dance,
Or tolling bells? Or shall young romance roam
These hills about the river, flowering now
To April’s tears, or shall they sit at home,
Or play croquet where Thomas Rhodes may see,
I ask you? If the blood of youth runs o’er
And riots ‘gainst this regimen of gloom,
Shall we submit to have these youths and maids
Branded as libertines and wantons?”
Ere
His words were done a woman’s voice called “No!”
Then rose a sound of moving chairs, as when
The numerous swine o’er-run the replenished troughs;
And every head was turned, as when a flock
Of geese back-turning to the hunter’s tread
Rise up with flapping wings; then rang the hall
With riotous laughter, for with battered hat
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