{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/father-malloy",
 "title": "Father Malloy",
 "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": 187,
 "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": 23,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You are over there, Father Malloy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not here with us on the hill⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You were so human, Father Malloy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the wastes about the pyramids",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And makes them real and Egypt real.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You were a part of and related to a great past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet you were so close to many of us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You believed in the joy of life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You faced life as it is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as it changes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some of us almost came to you, Father Malloy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeing how your church had divined the heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And provided for it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through Peter the Flame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peter the Rock.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}