Explore "Jacob Godbey" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How did you feel, you libertarians, / Who spent your talents rallying noble reasons / Around the saloon, as if Liberty / Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar / Or at a table, guzzling?
How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you, / Who almost stoned me for a tyrant, / Garbed as a moralist, / And as a wry-faced ascetic frowning upon Yorkshire pudding, / Roast beef and ale and good will and rosy cheer --
Things you never saw in a grog-shop in your life?
How did you feel after I was dead and gone, / And your goddess, Liberty, unmasked as a strumpet, / Selling out the streets of Spoon River / To the insolent giants / Who manned the saloons from afar?
Did it occur to you that personal liberty / Is liberty of the mind, / Rather than of the belly?