And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddleโ And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.
Edgar Lee MastersThe earth keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you. And if the people find you can fiddle, why fiddle you must, for all your life.
Edgar Lee Masters. . . the weal of the race, and the cause of humanity, here and now, are enough To give life meaning and death as well.
Edgar Lee MastersThe spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.
Edgar Lee Masters