Edgar Lee Masters Quotes (197 Quotes)



    But in taking life for myself,
    In seizing and crushing their souls,
    As a child crushes grapes and drinks
    From its palms the purple juice,
    I came to this wingless void,
    Where neither red, nor gold, nor wine,
    Nor the rhythm of life are known.

    Your husband is dead, your sister lives far away,
    Your father is bent with age;
    He has forgotten you, he scarcely leaves the house
    Any more.


    And joy beyond any joy is the joy
    Of having the good in you seen, and seeing the good
    At the miraculous moment!


    At last brought here-
    My boyhood home, you know-
    Not even a little tablet in Chicago
    To keep my name alive.

    There is the silence of those unjustly punished;
    And the silence of the dying whose hand
    Suddenly grips yours.

    After wandering afar, over the world,
    Life in cities, marriages, motehrhood--
    (They all married, and I am homeless, alone.


    And if the people find you can fiddle,
    Why, fiddle you must and for all your life.



    I belonged to the church,
    And to the party of prohibition;
    And the villagers thought I died of eating watermelon.

    And we -- we, the memories, stand here for ourselves alone,
    For no eye marks us, or would know why we are here.


    How shall the soul of a man be larger than the life he has lived?

    All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life --
    I sat under my cedar tree.

    I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
    I made the garden, and for holiday
    Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
    And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
    And many a flower and medicinal weed--
    Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.

    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
    With eyes made bright by faith in God,
    Accomplished the world's great reformations?


    But not a cell in all the tree
    Knew aught save that it thrilled with life,
    Nor cared because the hammock fell
    In the dust with Milton's poems.


    There is the silence of a great hatred,
    And the silence of a great love,
    And the silence of an embittered friendship.


    I, lover of Nature, beloved for my love of her,
    Held such converse afar with the great
    Who knew her better than I.

    Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed
    In many a watchful hour at night,
    Do you remember the letter I wrote you
    Of the beautiful love of Christ?

    In the lust of my strength
    I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me:
    I might as well have cursed the stars.

    It is well to abstain from murder and lust,
    To forgive, do good to others, worship God
    Without graven images.

    Paul was invalided from over study,
    Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man --
    I sat under my cedar tree.



    I thought over the last letter written me
    By that estranged young soul
    Whose betrayal of me I had concealed
    By marrying the old man.

    For the cloth of life is woven, you know,
    To a pattern hidden under the loom --
    A pattern you never see!


    It is all forgotten, save by us, the memories,
    Who are forgotten by the world.

    For you never traveled
    The long, long way that begins with school days,
    When little fingers blur under the tears
    That fall on the crooked letters.


    Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived
    That Henry loved me with a husband's love,
    But I proclaim from the dust
    That he slew me to gratify his hatred.

    In youth my mind was just a mirror
    In a rapidly flying car,
    Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.

    To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire-It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

    And I said "What does God do with mountains
    That rise almost to heaven?

    There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
    Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
    Comes with visions not to be uttered
    Into a realm of higher life.

    The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass,
    The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls,
    But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous
    In the blest Nirvana of eternal light!




    If the excursion train to Peoria
    Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with my life --
    Certainly I should have escaped this place.

    Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men,
    As one who in God-like fashion bends over an anthill,
    Seeing how their difficulties could be avoided.

    Do not let the will play gardener to your soul
    Unless you are sure
    It is wiser than your soul's nature.

    Do you think that the Battle Hymn of the Republic
    Would have been heard if the chattel slave
    Had crowned the dominant dollar,
    In spite of Whitney's cotton gin,
    And steam and rolling mills and iron
    And telegraphs and white free labor?


    More Edgar Lee Masters Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Life - Love - Man - Soul - Silence - World - Nature - God - Sadness - Truth - Christianity - Death & Dying - Youth - Woman - Place - Doubt & Skepticism - Home - Morning - Jesus Christ - View All Edgar Lee Masters Quotations

    Related Authors


    Shel Silverstein - Emily Dickinson - Edgar Allan Poe - Dante Alighieri - William Congreve - W. H. Auden - Thomas Gray - John Betjeman - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Edmund Spenser


Page 1 of 4 1 2 4

Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections