{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/the-village-atheist",
 "title": "The Village Atheist",
 "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": 226,
 "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": 51,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Ye young debaters over the doctrine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the soul’s immortality,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I who lie here was the village atheist,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the infidels.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But through a long sickness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Coughing myself to death",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I read the Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And desire which the Shadow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could not extinguish.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Listen to me, ye who live in the senses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And think through the senses only:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Immortality is not a gift,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Immortality is an achievement;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And only those who strive mightily",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall possess it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}