{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/robert-southey-burke",
 "title": "Robert Southey Burke",
 "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": 69,
 "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": 23,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 43,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I spent my money trying to elect you Mayor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A. D. Blood.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I lavished my admiration upon you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You were to my mind the almost perfect man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You devoured my personality,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the idealism of my youth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the strength of a high-souled fealty.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all my hopes for the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all my beliefs in Truth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were smelted up in the blinding heat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of my devotion to you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And molded into your image.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then when I found what you were:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That your soul was small",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And your words were false",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As your blue-white porcelain teeth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And your cuffs of celluloid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hated the love I had for you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hated myself, I hated you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For my wasted soul, and wasted youth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I say to all, beware of ideals,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beware of giving your love away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To any man alive.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}