Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950)
Eugenia Todd
1Have any of you, passers-by,
2Had an old tooth that was an unceasing discomfort?
3Or a pain in the side that never quite left you?
4Or a malignant growth that grew with time?
5So that even in profoundest slumber
6There was shadowy consciousness or the phantom of thought
7Of the tooth, the side, the growth?
8Even so thwarted love, or defeated ambition,
9Or a blunder in life which mixed your life
10Hopelessly to the end,
11Will like a tooth, or a pain in the side,
12Float through your dreams in the final sleep
13Till perfect freedom from the earth-sphere
14Comes to you as one who wakes
15Healed and glad in the morning!
Notes
1] "Eugenia Todd," meaning "well-born" (Greek) and "death" (German).
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]): 100. 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
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