Griffy the Cooper

The cooper should know about tubs.
But I learned about life as well,
And you who loiter around these graves
Think you know life.
You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps,
In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub.
You cannot lift yourself to its rim
And see the outer world of things,
And at the same time see yourself.
You are submerged in the tub of yourself⁠—
Taboos and rules and appearances,
Are the staves of your tub.
Break them and dispel the witchcraft
Of thinking your tub is life!
And that you know life!

Where this text comes from

First published in Spoon River Anthology (1916). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/edgar-lee-masters_spoon-river-anthology, spoon-river-anthology.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L15.

Cite this poem

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). “Griffy the Cooper.” First published in Spoon River Anthology (1916). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/edgar-lee-masters/griffy-the-cooper/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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