{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/mrs-charles-bliss",
 "title": "Mrs. Charles Bliss",
 "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": 88,
 "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": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the sake of the children,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Judge Somers advised him the same.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So we stuck to the end of the path.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But two of the children thought he was right,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And two of the children thought I was right.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the two who sided with him blamed me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the two who sided with me blamed him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they grieved for the one they sided with.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all were torn with the guilt of judging,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And tortured in soul because they could not admire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Equally him and me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now every gardener knows that plants grown in cellars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or under stones are twisted and yellow and weak.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And no mother would let her baby suck",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Diseased milk from her breast.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet preachers and judges advise the raising of souls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where there is no sunlight, but only twilight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No warmth, but only dampness and cold⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Preachers and judges!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}