{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/mrs-benjamin-pantier",
 "title": "Mrs. Benjamin Pantier",
 "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": 15,
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 60,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I know that he told that I snared his soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a snare which bled him to death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the men loved him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And most of the women pitied him.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And loathe the smell of whiskey and onions.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the rhythm of Wordsworth’s Ode runs in your ears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While he goes about from morning till night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Repeating bits of that common thing;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then, suppose:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are a woman well endowed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the only man with whom the law and morality",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Permit you to have the marital relation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the very man that fills you with disgust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every time you think of it⁠—while you think of it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every time you see him?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s why I drove him away from home",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To live with his dog in a dingy room",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back of his office.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}