I was well known and much beloved <br />And rich, as fortunes are reckoned <br />In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked. <br />That was the home for me, <br />Though all my children had flown afar— <br />Which is the way of Nature—all but one. <br />The boy, who was the baby, stayed at home, <br />To be my help in my failing years <br />And the solace of his mother. <br />But I grew weaker, as he grew stronger, <br />And he quarreled with me about the business, <br />And his wife said I was a hindrance to it; <br />And he won his mother to see as he did, <br />Till they tore me up to be transplanted <br />With them to her girlhood home in Missouri. <br />And so much of my fortune was gone at last, <br />Though I made the will just as he drew it, <br />He profited little by it.<br /><br />Edgar Lee Masters<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/josiah-tompkins/
