Explore "Richard Bone" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When I first came to Spoon River / I did not know whether what they told me / Was true or false.
They would bring me the epitaph / And stand around the shop while I worked / And say "He was so kind," "He was so wonderful,"
"She was the sweetest woman," "He was a consistent Christian."
And I chiseled for them whatever they wished, / All in ignorance of the truth.
But later, as I lived among the people here, / I knew how near to the life / Were the epitaphs that were ordered for them as they died.
But still I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel / And made myself party to the false chronicles / Of the stones, / Even as the historian does who writes / Without knowing the truth, / Or because he is influenced to hide it.