{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/davis-matlock",
 "title": "Davis Matlock",
 "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": 208,
 "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": {
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  "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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  [
   {
    "text": "Suppose it is nothing but the hive:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That there are drones and workers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And queens, and nothing but storing honey⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Material things as well as culture and wisdom)⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the next generation, this generation never living,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except as it swarms in the sunlight of youth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And tasting, on the way to the hive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the clover field, the delicate spoil.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suppose all this, and suppose the truth:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the nature of man is greater",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than nature’s need in the hive;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you must bear the burden of life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As well as the urge from your spirit’s excess⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, I say to live it out like a god",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sure of immortal life, though you are in doubt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the way to live it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If that doesn’t make God proud of you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then God is nothing but gravitation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or sleep is the golden goal.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}