{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/plymouth-rock-joe",
 "title": "Plymouth Rock Joe",
 "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": 215,
 "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": 31,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 60,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Why are you running so fast hither and thither",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chasing midges or butterflies?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some of you are standing solemnly scratching for grubs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some of you are waiting for corn to be scattered.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This is life, is it?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cock-a-doodle-do! Very well, Thomas Rhodes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are cock of the walk no doubt.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But here comes Elliott Hawkins,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gluck, Gluck, Gluck, attracting political followers.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quah! quah! quah! why so poetical, Minerva,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This gray morning?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kittie⁠—quah⁠—quah! for shame, Lucius Atherton,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The raucous squawk you evoked from the throat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Aner Clute will be taken up later",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By Mrs. Benjamin Pantier as a cry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of votes for women: Ka dook⁠—dook!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What inspiration has come to you, Margaret Fuller Slack?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why does your gooseberry eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flit so liquidly, Tennessee Claflin Shope?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are you trying to fathom the esotericism of an egg?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your voice is very metallic this morning, Hortense Robbins⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Almost like a guinea hen’s!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quah! That was a guttural sigh, Isaiah Beethoven;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did you see the shadow of the hawk,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or did you step upon the drumsticks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which the cook threw out this morning?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be chivalric, heroic, or aspiring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Metaphysical, religious, or rebellious,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You shall never get out of the barnyard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except by way of over the fence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mixed with potato peelings and such into the trough!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}