{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/russian-sonia",
 "title": "Russian Sonia",
 "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": 83,
 "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": 19,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I, born in Weimar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a mother who was French",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And German father, a most learned professor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Orphaned at fourteen years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Became a dancer, known as Russian Sonia,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All up and down the boulevards of Paris,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mistress betimes of sundry dukes and counts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And later of poor artists and of poets.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At forty years, passé, I sought New York",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And met old Patrick Hummer on the boat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Red-faced and hale, though turned his sixtieth year,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Returning after having sold a ship-load",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of cattle in the German city, Hamburg.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He brought me to Spoon River and we lived here",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For twenty years⁠—they thought that we were married!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This oak tree near me is the favorite haunt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of blue jays chattering, chattering all the day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why not? for my very dust is laughing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For thinking of the humorous thing called life.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}