{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/oaks-tutt",
 "title": "Oaks Tutt",
 "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": 157,
 "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": 26,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 62,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My mother was for woman’s rights",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In order to learn how to reform the world.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I traveled through many lands.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw the ruins of Rome,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the ruins of Athens,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the ruins of Thebes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There I was caught up by wings of flame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a voice from heaven said to me:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Injustice, Untruth destroyed them. Go forth!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Preach Justice! Preach Truth!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I hastened back to Spoon River",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They all saw a strange light in my eye.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by and by, when I talked, they discovered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What had come in my mind.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then Jonathan Swift Somers challenged me to debate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The subject, (I taking the negative):",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Pontius Pilate, the Greatest Philosopher of the World.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he won the debate by saying at last,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Before you reform the world, Mr. Tutt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Please answer the question of Pontius Pilate:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "‘What is Truth?’ ”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}