{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/e-c-culbertson",
 "title": "E. C. Culbertson",
 "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": 170,
 "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": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Is it true, Spoon River,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That in the hall-way of the New Court House",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is a tablet of bronze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Containing the embossed faces",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhodes?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And is it true that my successful labors",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the County Board, without which",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not one stone would have been placed on another,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the contributions out of my own pocket",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To build the temple, are but memories among the people,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gradually fading away, and soon to descend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With them to this oblivion where I lie?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In truth, I can so believe.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For it is a law of the Kingdom of Heaven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That whoso enters the vineyard at the eleventh hour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall receive a full day’s pay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And it is a law of the Kingdom of this World",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That those who first oppose a good work",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seize it and make it their own,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the corner-stone is laid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And memorial tablets are erected.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}