Barry Holden

Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)



The very fall my sister Nancy Knapp
Set fire to the house
They were trying Dr. Duval
For the murder of Zora Clemens,
And I sat in the court two weeks
Listening to every witness.
It was clear he had got her in a family way;
And to let the child be born
Would not do.
Well, how about me with eight children,
And one coming, and the farm
Mortgaged to Thomas Rhodes?
And when I got home that night,
(After listening to the story of the buggy ride,
And the finding of Zora in the ditch,)
The first thing I saw, right there by the steps,
Where the boys had hacked for angle worms,
Was the hatchet!
And just as I entered there was my wife,
Standing before me, big with child.
She started the talk of the mortgaged farm,
And I killed her.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
122

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTKU
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 717
Words 148
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 22

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. more…

All Edgar Lee Masters poems | Edgar Lee Masters Books

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