Reading in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys, Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela, The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne, And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing Till the gods made Philomela a nightingale, Lute of the rising moon, and Procne a swallow! Oh livers and artists of Hellas centuries gone, Sealing in little thuribles dreams and wisdom, Incense beyond all price, forever fragrant, A breath whereof makes clear the eyes of the soul! How I inhaled its sweetness here in Spoon River! The thurible opening when I had lived and learned How all of us kill the children of love, and all of us, Knowing not what we do, devour their flesh; And all of us change to singers, although it be But once in our lives, or change -- alas -- to swallows, To twitter amid cold winds and falling leaves! Alexander Throckmorton In youth my wings were strong and tireless, But I did not know the mountains. In age I knew the mountains But my weary wings could not follow my vision -- Genius is wisdom and youth. Rutherford McDowell They brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge. And sometimes one sat for me -- Some one who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic. What was it in their eyes? -- For I could never fathom That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, And the serene sorrow of their eyes. It was like a pool of water, Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest, Where the leaves fall, As you hear the crow of a cock Where the third generation lives, and the strong men From a far-off farm-house, seen near the hills And the strong women are gone and forgotten. And these grand-children and great grand-children Of the pioneers! Truly did my camera record their faces, too, With so much of the old strength gone, And the old faith gone, And the old mastery of life gone, And the old courage gone, Which labors and loves and suffers and sings Under the sun! William H. Herndon