Masters, Edgar Lee: Spoon River Anthology - Lucinda Matlock

  I went to the dances at Chandlerville,

  And played snap-out at Winchester.

  One time we changed partners,

  Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,

  And then I found Davis.

  We were married and lived together for seventy years,

  Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,

  Eight of whom we lost

  Ere I had reached the age of sixty.

  I spun,

  I wove,

  I kept the house,

  I nursed the sick,

  I made the garden, and for holiday

  Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,

  And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,

  And many a flower and medicinal weed--

  Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.

  At ninety--six I had lived enough, that is all,

  And passed to a sweet repose.

  What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,

  Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?

  Degenerate sons and daughters,

  Life is too strong for you--

  It takes life to love Life.