Jefferson Howard

My valiant fight! For I call it valiant,         With my father's beliefs from old Virginia:         Hating slavery, but no less war.         I, full of spirit, audacity, courage         Thrown into life here in Spoon River,         With its dominant forces drawn from         New England, Republicans, Calvinists, merchants, bankers,         Hating me, yet fearing my arm.         With wife and children heavy to carry -         Yet fruits of my very zest of life.         Stealing odd pleasures that cost me prestige,         And reaping evils I had not sown;         Foe of the church with its charnel dankness,         Friend of the human touch of the tavern;         Tangled with fates all alien to me,         Deserted by hands I called my own.         Then just as I felt my giant strength         Short of breath, behold my children         Had wound their lives in stranger gardens -         And I stood alone, as I started alone         My valiant life! I died on my feet,         Facing the silence - facing the prospect         That no one would know of the fight I made.