{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/judge-selah-lively",
 "title": "Judge Selah Lively",
 "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": 94,
 "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": 19,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Suppose you stood just five feet two,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And had worked your way as a grocery clerk,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Studying law by candle light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until you became an attorney at law?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then suppose through your diligence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And regular church attendance,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You became attorney for Thomas Rhodes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Collecting notes and mortgages,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And representing all the widows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the Probate Court? And through it all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They jeered at your size, and laughed at your clothes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And your polished boots? And then suppose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You became the County Judge?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Jefferson Howard and Kinsey Keene,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Harmon Whitney, and all the giants",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who had sneered at you, were forced to stand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before the bar and say “Your Honor”⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, don’t you think it was natural",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I made it hard for them?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}