Oaks Tutt by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

My mother was for woman's rights / And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.

I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.

When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries / In order to learn how to reform the world.

I traveled through many lands.

I saw the ruins of Rome, / And the ruins of Athens, / And the ruins of Thebes.

And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.

There I was caught up by wings of flame, / And a voice from heaven said to me:

"Injustice, Untruth destroyed them. Go forth!

Preach Justice! Preach Truth!"

And I hastened back to Spoon River / To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.

They all saw a strange light in my eye.

And by and by, when I taIked, they discovered / What had come in my mind.

Then Jonathan Swift Somers challenged me to debate / The subject, (I taking the negative):

"Pontius Pilate, the Greatest Philosopher of the World."

And he won the debate by saying at last, / "Before you reform the world, Mr. Tutt, / Please answer the question of Pontius Pilate:

'What is Truth? "