To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire--It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

My name used to be in the papers dailyAs having dined somewhere,Or traveled somewhere,Or rented a house in Paris,Where I entertained the nobility.I was forever eating or traveling,Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden.Now I am here to do honorTo Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang.No one cares now where I dined,Or lived, or whom I entertained,Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden!

Rather a thousand times the county jail than to lie under this marble figure with wings and this granite pedestal bearing the words "pro patria." What do they mean anyway?

O world, that's you!You are but a widened place in the riverWhere Life looks down and we rejoice for herMirrored in us, and so we dreamAnd turn away

In time you shall see Fate approach youIn the shape of your own image in the mirror.

I have studied many timesThe marble which was chiseled for me—A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.In truth it pictures not my destinationBut my life.For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.And now I know that we must lift the sailAnd catch the winds of destinyWherever they drive the boat.To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire—It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

And I never started to plow in my lifeThat some one did not stop in the roadAnd take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle—And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,And not a single regret.

the much-sought prize of eternal youthIs just arrested growth.

Reckless of my mortality,Strengthen me to behold a face,To know the spirit of a beloved oneYet to endure, yet to dare!

Act well your part,there all the honor lies.