Death & Dying

Deacon Taylor

by Edgar Lee Masters 1868–1950

From Spoon River Anthology (1916)

Death & Dying

I belonged to the church,
And to the party of prohibition;
And the villagers thought I died of eating watermelon.
In truth I had cirrhosis of the liver,
For every noon for thirty years,
I slipped behind the prescription partition
In Trainor’s drug store
And poured a generous drink
From the bottle marked “Spiritus frumenti.”

MLA

Masters, Edgar Lee. “Deacon Taylor.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/masters/56/.

Chicago

Masters, Edgar Lee. “Deacon Taylor.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/masters/56/.

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