{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/lucius-atherton",
 "title": "Lucius Atherton",
 "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": 55,
 "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": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When my moustache curled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my hair was black,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I wore tight trousers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a diamond stud,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was an excellent knave of hearts and took many a trick.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But when the gray hairs began to appear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo! a new generation of girls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laughed at me, not fearing me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I had no more exciting adventures",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherein I was all but shot for a heartless devil,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But only drabby affairs, warmed-over affairs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of other days and other men.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And time went on until I lived at Mayer’s restaurant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Partaking of short-orders, a gray, untidy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Toothless, discarded, rural Don Juan⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is a mighty shade here who sings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of one named Beatrice;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I see now that the force that made him great",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drove me to the dregs of life.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}