{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/john-ballard",
 "title": "John Ballard",
 "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": 227,
 "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": {
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  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 64,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "In the lust of my strength",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I might as well have cursed the stars.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In my last sickness I was in agony, but I was resolute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I cursed God for my suffering;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still He paid no attention to me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He left me alone, as He had always done.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I might as well have cursed the Presbyterian steeple.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, as I grew weaker, a terror came over me:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps I had alienated God by cursing him.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One day Lydia Humphrey brought me a bouquet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And it occurred to me to try to make friends with God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So I tried to make friends with Him;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I might as well have tried to make friends with the bouquet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now I was very close to the secret,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I really could make friends with the bouquet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By holding close to me the love in me for the bouquet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so I was creeping upon the secret, but⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}