Quote#Remembrance
I never started to plow in my life
Quote byEdgar Lee Masters · 1868–1950
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Fiddler Jones.
English (original)
I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And 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.
— Edgar Lee Masters
More from Edgar Lee Masters
You may think, passer-by, that Fate Is a pit-fall outside of yourself, Around which you may walk by the use of foresight And wisdom.
Go by reverently, and read with sober care How a great people, riding with defiant shouts The centaur of Revolution, Spurred and whipped to frenzy, Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea Over the precipice they were nearing,
And when you are poor and have to carry The Christian creed and wife and children All on your back, it is too much! That's why I made the Elixir of Youth, Which landed me in the jail at Peoria Branded a swindler and a crook
In my Spanish cloak, And old slouch hat, And overshoes of felt, And Tyke, my faithful dog, And my knotted hickory cane, I slipped about with a bull's-eye lantern
Blind as I was, I tried to get out As the carriage fell in the ditch, And was caught in the wheels and killed.
In time you shall see Fate approach you In the shape of your own image in the mirror; Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth, And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest, And you shall know that guest, And read the authentic …