Herbert Marshall

All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me
Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness
Of spirit and contempt of your soul’s rights
Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.
You really grew to hate me for love of me,
Because I was your soul’s happiness,
Formed and tempered
To solve your life for you, and would not.
But you were my misery. If you had been
My happiness would I not have clung to you?
This is life’s sorrow:
That one can be happy only where two are;
And that our hearts are drawn to stars
Which want us not.

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–#L14.

Cite this poem

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

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