Skip to content
Linespedia

Rosie Roberts

Topics: classic

I was sick, but more than that, I was mad         At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life.         So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria:         "l am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River,         Gradually wasting away.         But come and take me, I killed the son         Of the merchant prince, in Madam Lou's         And the papers that said he killed himself         In his home while cleaning a hunting gun -         Lied like the devil to hush up scandal         For the bribe of advertising.         In my room I shot him, at Madam Lou's,         Because he knocked me down when I said         That, in spite of all the money he had,         I'd see my lover that night."

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"I was sick, but more than that, I was mad..."

"Rosie Roberts" is a quintessential example of Edgar Lee Masters's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"Antonio loved the Lady Clare.         He caught her to him on the stair         And pressed her breasts and kissed her hair,         And dr"

"I am Minerva, the village poetess,         Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street         For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling"

""I was walking by the river," Barrett said,         "When she arrived. I took her hand, no kiss,         A silence for some minutes as we wa"

"Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted,         Your love was not all in vain.         I owe whatever I was in life         To yo"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"Antonio loved the Lady Clare.         He caught he..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.