{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/fletcher-mcgee",
 "title": "Fletcher McGee",
 "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": 4,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "She took my strength by minutes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She took my life by hours,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She drained me like a fevered moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That saps the spinning world.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The days went by like shadows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The minutes wheeled like stars.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She took the pity from my heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And made it into smiles.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She was a hunk of sculptor’s clay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My secret thoughts were fingers:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They flew behind her pensive brow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lined it deep with pain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And drooped the eye with sorrow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My soul had entered in the clay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fighting like seven devils.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was not mine, it was not hers;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She held it, but its struggles",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Modeled a face she hated,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a face I feared to see.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I beat the windows, shook the bolts.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hid me in a corner⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then she died and haunted me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hunted me for life.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}