{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/dow-kritt",
 "title": "Dow Kritt",
 "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": 218,
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 47,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Samuel is forever talking of his elm⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I did not need to die to learn about roots:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, who dug all the ditches about Spoon River.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look at my elm!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sprung from as good a seed as his,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sown at the same time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is dying at the top:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not from lack of life, nor fungus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor destroying insect, as the sexton thinks.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look, Samuel, where the roots have struck rock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And can no further spread.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the while the top of the tree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is tiring itself out, and dying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trying to grow.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}