{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/alfonso-churchill",
 "title": "Alfonso Churchill",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Lee Masters",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-lee-masters",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spoon River Anthology",
 "book_slug": "spoon-river-anthology",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 229,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1916,
  "venue": "Spoon River Anthology (1916)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-lee-masters_spoon-river-anthology",
  "file": "spoon-river-anthology.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://web.archive.org/web/20080723131115/http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/originalOrder/",
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 17,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "They laughed at me as “Prof. Moon,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As a boy in Spoon River, born with the thirst",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of knowing about the stars.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They jeered when I spoke of the lunar mountains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the thrilling heat and cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the ebon valleys by silver peaks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Spica quadrillions of miles away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the littleness of man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But now that my grave is honored, friends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let it not be because I taught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lore of the stars in Knox College,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But rather for this: that through the stars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I preached the greatness of man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who is none the less a part of the scheme of things",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the distance of Spica or the Spiral Nebulae;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor any the less a part of the question",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what the drama means.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}