Edgar Lee Masters (1868 -1950) was a United States American poet, biographer and dramatist. He is the author of Spoon River Anthology, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain : A Portrait, Lincoln, The Man, Illinois Poems.
Reading closely
A full analysis sits under 3 of these poems: what each poem says, how it is built and how readers here have read it. About the analyses
This poem is a sixteen-line monologue spoken by a man looking at the carving on his own grave marker. The stone shows "A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor". Whoever chose it meant a peaceful arrival. The speaker reads it differently. He says it pictures not where he ended up but how he lived.
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