Edgar Lee Masters: Conrad Siever

Not in that wasted garden 
Where bodies are drawn into grass 
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens 
That bear no fruit — 
There where along the shaded walks 
Vain sighs are heard, 
And vainer dreams are dreamed 
Of close communion with departed souls — 
But here under the apple tree 
I loved and watched and pruned 
With gnarled hands 
In the long, long years; 
Here under the roots of this northern-spy 
To move in the chemic change and circle of life, 
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree, 
And into the living epitaphs 
Of redder apples! 

Public Domain. From Spoon River Anthology.

Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950), an attorney and author, is remembered for his masterpiece Spoon River Anthology (1915), a collection of poems modeled on the Greek Anthology. In Masters’ poems, the residents of the midwestern town of Spoon River speak from beyond the grave, often revealing lives of dishonesty and hypocrisy. Its unsentimental view of small town America influenced an entire generation of American writers, including Theodore Dreiser and Vachel Lindsay.