{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/isaiah-beethoven",
 "title": "Isaiah Beethoven",
 "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": 242,
 "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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "They told me I had three months to live,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So I crept to Bernadotte,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sat by the mill for hours and hours",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the gathered waters deeply moving",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seemed not to move:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O world, that’s you!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are but a widened place in the river",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mirrored in us, and so we dream",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And turn away, but when again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We look for the face, behold the low-lands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And blasted cotton-wood trees where we empty",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the larger stream!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But here by the mill the castled clouds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mocked themselves in the dizzy water;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And over its agate floor at night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The flame of the moon ran under my eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid a forest stillness broken",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By a flute in a hut on the hill.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At last when I came to lie in bed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weak and in pain, with the dreams about me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul of the river had entered my soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the gathered power of my soul was moving",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So swiftly it seemed to be at rest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under cities of cloud and under",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spheres of silver and changing worlds⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until I saw a flash of trumpets",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Above the battlements over Time!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}