quotes from Spoon River (part 2)

continued from the envelope -
because you have to chew your gravestone poetry slowly now.


Louise Smith

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




Fiddler Jones

I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle -
And a broken laugh,
and a thousand memories,
and not a single regret




Emily Sparks

My boy, wherever you are,
Work for your soul's sake
That all the clay of you,
and all the dross of you,
May yield to the fire of you,
Til the fire is nothing but light!
Nothing but light!




Herbert Marshall

This is life's sorrow"
That one can be happy
only where two are,
and that our hearts are
drawn to stars
which want us not.