Percival Sharp by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

Observe the clasped hands!

Are they hands of farewell or greeting, / Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?

Would it not be well to carve a hand / With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?

And yonder is a broken chain, / The weakest-link idea perhaps --

But what was it?

And lambs, some lying down, / Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd --

Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up --

Why not chisel a few shambles?

And fallen columns! Carve the pedestal, please, / Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall.

And compasses and mathematical instruments, / In irony of the under tenants' ignorance / Of determinants and the calculus of variations.

And anchors, for those who never sailed.

And gates ajar -- yes, so they were;

You left them open and stray goats entered your garden.

And an eye watching like one of the Arimaspi --

So did you -- with one eye.

And angels blowing trumpets -- you are heralded --

It is your horn and your angel and your family's estimate.

It is all very well, but for myself I know / I stirred certain vibrations in Spoon River / Which are my true epitaph, more lasting than stone.