{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/bert-kessler",
 "title": "Bert Kessler",
 "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": 140,
 "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"
  ]
 },
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  "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"
 },
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  [
   {
    "text": "I winged my bird,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though he flew toward the setting sun;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But just as the shot rang out, he soared",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up and up through the splinters of golden light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With some of the down of him floating near,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fell like a plummet into the grass.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I tramped about, parting the tangles,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the quail lying close to the rotten roots.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I reached my hand, but saw no brier,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But something pricked and stung and numbed it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then, in a second, I spied the rattler⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shutters wide in his yellow eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A circle of filth, the color of ashes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And started to crawl beneath the stump,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I fell limp in the grass.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}