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

123. Jonathan Swift Somers

AFTER 1 you have enriched your soul

To the highest point,

With books, thought, suffering, the understanding of many personalities,

The power to interpret glances, silences,

The pauses in momentous transformations,

The genius of divination and prophecy;

So that you feel able at times to hold the world

In the hollow of your hand;

Then, if, by the crowding of so many powers

Into the compass of your soul,

Your soul takes fire,

And in the conflagration of your soul

The evil of the world is lighted up and made clear—

Be thankful if in that hour of supreme vision

Life does not fiddle.

1 Author of THE SPOONIAD.