{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/charles-webster",
 "title": "Charles Webster",
 "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": 186,
 "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": 25,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The pine woods on the hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the farmhouse miles away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Showed clear as though behind a lens",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under a sky of peacock blue!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But a blanket of cloud by afternoon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Muffled the earth. And you walked the road",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the clover field, where the only sound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was the cricket’s liquid tremolo.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then the sun went down between great drifts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of distant storms. For a rising wind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swept clean the sky and blew the flames",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the unprotected stars;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And swayed the russet moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hanging between the rim of the hill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the twinkling boughs of the apple orchard.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You walked the shore in thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the throats of the waves were like whip-poor-wills",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Singing beneath the water and crying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the wash of the wind in the cedar trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till you stood, too full for tears, by the cot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And looking up saw Jupiter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tipping the spire of the giant pine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And looking down saw my vacant chair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rocked by the wind on the lonely porch⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be brave, Beloved!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}