Explore "John Wasson" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina / Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing, / One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing, / Lengthening out the farewell to me off to the war with the British, / And then the long, hard years down to the day of Yorktown.
And then my search for Rebecca, / Finding her at last in Virginia, / Two children dead in the meanwhile.
We went by oxen to Tennessee, / Thence after years to Illinois, / At last to Spoon River.
We cut the buffalo grass, / We felled the forests, / We built the school houses, built the bridges, / Leveled the roads and tilled the fields / Alone with poverty, scourges, death --
If Harry Wilmans who fought the Filipinos / Is to have a flag on his grave / Take it from mine.