{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/percival-sharp",
 "title": "Percival Sharp",
 "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": 152,
 "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": 27,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 58,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Observe the clasped hands!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are they hands of farewell or greeting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would it not be well to carve a hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yonder is a broken chain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The weakest-link idea perhaps⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But what was it?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lambs, some lying down,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Others bearing a cross, one foot lifted up⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why not chisel a few shambles?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fallen columns! Carve the pedestal, please,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or the foundations; let us see the cause of the fall.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And compasses and mathematical instruments,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In irony of the under tenants’ ignorance",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of determinants and the calculus of variations.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And anchors, for those who never sailed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And gates ajar⁠—yes, so they were;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You left them open and stray goats entered your garden.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And an eye watching like one of the Arimaspi⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So did you⁠—with one eye.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And angels blowing trumpets⁠—you are heralded⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is your horn and your angel and your family’s estimate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is all very well, but for myself I know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I stirred certain vibrations in Spoon River",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which are my true epitaph, more lasting than stone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}