The cooper should know about tubs.
But I learned about life as well,
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God! ask me not to record your wonders,
I admit the stars and the suns
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They brought me ambrotypes
Of the old pioneers to enlarge.
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What do you see now?
Globes of red, yellow, purple.
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I was well known and much beloved
And rich, as fortunes are reckoned
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My mind was a mirror:
It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew.
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I won the prize essay at school
Here in the village,
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Dust of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
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When I first came to Spoon River
I did not know whether what they told me
18 lines, 3 comments
I winged my bird,
Though he flew toward the setting sun;
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Mr Kessler, you know, was in the army,
And he drew six dollars a month as a pension,
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Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel--
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Out of me unworthy and unknown
The vibrations of deathless music;
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The earth keeps some vibration going
There in your heart, and that is you.
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I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
When I felt the bullet enter my heart
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I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
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I know that he told how I snared his soul
With a snare which bled him to death.
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Together in this grave lie Benjamin Painter, attorney at law,
And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend.
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Your attention, Thomas Rhodes, president of the bank;
Coolbaugh Wedon, editor of the Argus;
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How does it happen, tell me,
That I who was the most erudite of lawyers,
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You never marveled, dullards of Spoon River,
When Chase Henry voted against the saloons
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In my life I was the town drunkard;
When I died the priest denied me burial
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You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River,
In rearing Irene and Mary,
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Henry got me with child,
Knowing that I could not bring forth life
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My life's blossom might have bloomed on all sides
Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals
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They have Chiseled on my stone the words:
'His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him
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If a man could bite the giant hand
That catches and destroys him,
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She took my strength by minutes,
She took my life by hours,
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Have you seen walking through the village
A man with downcast eyes and haggard face?
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Here I lie close to the grave
Of Old Bill Piersol,
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