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

125. Carl Hamblin

THE PRESS of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked,

And I was tarred and feathered,

For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago:

“I saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes

Standing on the steps of a marble temple.

Great multitudes passed in front of her,

Lifting their faces to her imploringly.

In her left hand she held a sword.

She was brandishing the sword,

Sometimes striking a child, again a laborer,

Again a slinking woman, again a lunatic.

In her right hand she held a scale;

Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed

By those who dodged the strokes of the sword.

A man in a black gown read from a manuscript:

‘She is no respecter of persons.’

Then a youth wearing a red cap

Leaped to her side and snatched away the bandage.

And lo, the lashes had been eaten away

From the oozy eye-lids;

The eye-balls were seared with a milky mucus;

The madness of a dying soul

Was written on her face—

But the multitude saw why she wore the bandage.”