Robert Chapin

Robert Chapin by Edgar Lee Masters

From a "Spoon River Annex", in McClure's Magazine/Volume 51, No. 10, October 1919, p. 26

Have you stood in front of the iron bars,

And watched the lion look over your head?

He sees the palm-tree and the mate,

And the waste of the tawny desert!

Are you moved by the music, or the concourse

Of melodious words?

But how are you moved except for life

That made a self of you, responding

To sounds or scenes of remembered places,

Or other spheres, perhaps?

Life is a cage! Beauty a vision

Of a freedom once enjoyed.