Those who first oppose a good work, seize it and make it their own, when the cornerstone is laid and memorial tablets are erected.
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 MastersAnd 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 MastersThis is a man with an old face, always old... There was pathos, in his face, and in his eyes. The early weariness; and sometimes tears in his eyes, Which he let slip unconsciously on his cheek, Or brushed away with an unconcerned hand. There were tears for human suffering, or for a glance Into the vast futility of life, Which he had seen from the first, being old When he was born.
Edgar Lee Masters