RPO -- Edgar Lee Masters : Yee Bow

Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950)

Yee Bow

1They got me into the Sunday-school

2In Spoon River

3And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus.

4I could have been no worse off

5If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.

6For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,

7And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,

8The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs,

9With a blow of his fist.

10Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,

11And no children shall worship at my grave.

Notes

1] Yee Bow: an laundry-man in Lewistown, according to Edgar Lee Masters' Across Spoon River: An Autobiography (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1936): 138.

3] Confucius: religious philosopher and moralist of China (551-479 B.C.).

10] Pekin: Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China.

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]): 101. 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