Seth Compton by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

When I died, the circulating library / Which I built up for Spoon River, / And managed for the good of inquiring minds, / Was sold at auction on the public square, / As if to destroy the last vestige / Of my memory and influence.

For those of you who could not see the virtue / Of knowing Volney's Ruins as well as Butler's Analogy / And Faust as well as Evangeline, / Were really the power in the village, / And often you asked me, / "What is the use of knowing the evil in the world?"

I am out of your way now, Spoon River, / Choose your own good and call it good.

For I could never make you see / That no one knows what is good / Who knows not what is evil;

And no one knows what is true / Who knows not what is false.