Searcy Foote
Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)
I wanted to go away to college
But rich Aunt Persis wouldn't help me.
So I made gardens and raked the lawns
And bought John Alden's books with my earnings
And toiled for the very means of life.
I wanted to marry Delia Prickett,
But how could I do it with what I earned?
And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy,
Who sat in a wheel-chair half alive,
With her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowed
The soup ran out of her mouth like a duck --
A gourmand yet, investing her income
In mortgages, fretting all the time
About her notes and rents and papers.
That day I was sawing wood for her,
And reading Proudhon in between.
I went in the house for a drink of water,
And there she sat asleep in her chair,
And Proudhon lying on the table,
And a bottle of chloroform on the book,
She used sometimes for an aching tooth!
I poured the chloroform on a handkerchief
And held it to her nose till she died. --
Oh Delia, Delia, you and Proudhon
Steadied my hand, and the coroner
Said she died of heart failure.
I married Delia and got the money --
A joke on you, Spoon River?
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 105 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABCDEFGBHIJKLMNONPQRSTUONNBN |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,049 |
Words | 210 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
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"Searcy Foote" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/8713/searcy-foote>.
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