Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

104. Thomas Rhodes

VERY well, you liberals,

And navigators into realms intellectual,

You sailors through heights imaginative,

Blown about by erratic currents, tumbling into air pockets,

You Margaret Fuller Slacks, Petits,

And Tennessee Claflin Shopes—

You found with all your boasted wisdom

How hard at the last it is

To keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms.

While we, seekers of earth’s treasures,

Getters and hoarders of gold,

Are self-contained, compact, harmonized,

Even to the end.