Edgar Lee Masters

Ollie McGee

Spoon River Anthology

Have you seen walking through the village

A man with downcast eyes and haggard face?

That is my husband who, by secret cruelty

never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty;

Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth,

And with broken pride and shameful humility,

I sank into the grave.

But what think you gnaws at my husband's heart?

The face of what I was, the face of what he made me!

These are driving him to the place where I lie.

In death, therefore, I am avenged.