{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/lyman-king",
 "title": "Lyman King",
 "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": 198,
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You may think, passer-by, that Fate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is a pit-fall outside of yourself,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Around which you may walk by the use of foresight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wisdom.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As one who in God-like fashion bends over an anthill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeing how their difficulties could be avoided.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But pass on into life:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In time you shall see Fate approach you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the shape of your own image in the mirror;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you shall know that guest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And read the authentic message of his eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}