Archibald Higbie by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, / I was ashamed of you. I despised you / As the place of my nativity.

And there in Rome, among the artists, / Speaking Italian, speaking French, / I seemed to myself at times to be free / Of every trace of my origin.

I seemed to be reaching the heights of art / And to breathe the air that the masters breathed, / And to see the world with their eyes.

But still they'd pass my work and say:

"What are you driving at, my friend?

Sometimes the face looks like Apollo's, / At others it has a trace of Lincoln's."

There was no culture, you know, in Spoon River, / And I burned with shame and held my peace.

And what could I do, all covered over / And weighted down with western soil, / Except aspire, and pray for another / Birth in the world, with all of Spoon River / Rooted out of my soul?