Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950)
Dora Williams
1When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me
2I went to Springfield. There I met a lush,
3Whose father just deceased left him a fortune.
4He married me when drunk. My life was wretched.
5A year passed and one day they found him dead.
6That made me rich. I moved on to Chicago.
7After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain.
8I moved on to New York. A gray-haired magnate
9Went mad about me -- so another fortune.
10He died one night right in my arms, you know.
11(I saw his purple face for years thereafter.)
12There was almost a scandal. I moved on,
13This time to Paris. I was now a woman,
14Insidious, subtle, versed in the world and rich.
15My sweet apartment near the Champs Élysées
16Became a center for all sorts of people,
17Musicians, poets, dandies, artists, nobles,
18Where we spoke French and German, Italian, English.
19I wed Count Navigato, native of Genoa.
20We went to Rome. He poisoned me, I think.
21Now in the Campo Santo overlooking
22The sea where young Columbus dreamed new worlds,
23See what they chiseled: "Contessa Navigato
24Implora eterna quiete."
Notes
1] Reuben Pantier: another of Masters' Spoon River characters.
2] lush: alcoholic.
15] Champs Élysées: a well-known boulevard in Paris.
21] Campo Santo: a cemetery on the south side of St. Peter's in Rome.
24] "... begs for eternal peace" (Italian).
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology,
illustrated by Oliver Herford (London: T. Werner Laurie,
[1916]): 71. 8-NBI Masters New York Public Library
First publication date:
1915
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2003
Recent editing: 1:2003/6/2
Rhyme: unrhyming
Other poems by Edgar Lee Masters
