{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/richard-bone",
 "title": "Richard Bone",
 "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": 166,
 "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": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 62,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When I first came to Spoon River",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I did not know whether what they told me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was true or false.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They would bring me the epitaph",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stand around the shop while I worked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And say “He was so kind,” “He was so wonderful,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“She was the sweetest woman,” “He was a consistent Christian.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I chiseled for them whatever they wished,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All in ignorance of the truth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But later, as I lived among the people here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew how near to the life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were the epitaphs that were ordered for them as they died.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But still I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And made myself party to the false chronicles",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the stones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even as the historian does who writes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without knowing the truth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or because he is influenced to hide it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}