{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/dippold-the-optician",
 "title": "Dippold the Optician",
 "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": 178,
 "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": 27,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 58,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "What do you see now?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Globes of red, yellow, purple.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just a moment! And now?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My father and mother and sisters.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yes! And now?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Try this.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A field of grain⁠—a city.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Very good! And now?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A young woman with angels bending over her.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A heavier lens! And now?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many women with bright eyes and open lips.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Try this.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just a goblet on a table.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh I see! Try this lens!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just an open space⁠—I see nothing in particular.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, now!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pine trees, a lake, a summer sky.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s better. And now?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A book.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Read a page for me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I can’t. My eyes are carried beyond the page.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Try this lens.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Depths of air.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Excellent! And now?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Light, just light, making everything below it a toy world.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Very well, we’ll make the glasses accordingly.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}