Edgar Lee Masters

Isa Nutter

Doc Meyers said I had satyriasis,
And Doc Hill called it leucaemia --
But I know what brought me here:
I was sixty-four but strong as a man
Of thirty-five or forty.
And it wasn’t writing a letter a day,
And it wasn’t late hours seven nights a week,
And it wasn’t the strain of thinking of Minnie,
And it wasn’t fear or a jealous dread,
Or the endless task of trying to fathom
Her wonderful mind, or sympathy
For the wretched life she led
With her first and second husband --
It was none of these that laid me low --
But the clamor of daughters and threats of sons,
And the sneers and curses of all my kin
Right up to the day I sneaked to Peoria
And married Minnie in spite of them --
And why do you wonder my will was made
For the best and purest of women?