{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/robert-fulton-tanner",
 "title": "Robert Fulton Tanner",
 "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": 5,
 "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": 22,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If a man could bite the giant hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That catches and destroys him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As I was bitten by a rat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While demonstrating my patent trap,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In my hardware store that day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But a man can never avenge himself",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the monstrous ogre Life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You enter the room⁠—that’s being born;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then you must live⁠—work out your soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aha! the bait that you crave is in view:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A woman with money you want to marry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prestige, place, or power in the world.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But there’s work to do and things to conquer⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, yes! the wires that screen the bait.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At last you get in⁠—but you hear a step:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ogre, Life, comes into the room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(He was waiting and heard the clang of the spring)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To watch you nibble the wondrous cheese,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stare with his burning eyes at you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And scowl and laugh, and mock and curse you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Running up and down in the trap,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until your misery bores him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}