{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/webster-ford",
 "title": "Webster Ford",
 "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": 244,
 "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": 31,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 61,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M’Grew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cried, “There’s a ghost,” and I, “It’s Delphic Apollo”;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the son of the banker derided us, saying, “It’s light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the flags at the water’s edge, you half-witted fools.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long after",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down, down, through bellowing darkness, I carried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The vision which perished with him like a rocket which falls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And quenches its light in earth, and hid it for fear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the son of the banker, calling on Plutus to save me?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Avenged were you for the shame of a fearful heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who left me alone till I saw you again in an hour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I seemed to be turned to a tree with trunk and branches",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Growing indurate, turning to stone, yet burgeoning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In laurel leaves, in hosts of lambent laurel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quivering, fluttering, shrinking, fighting the numbness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Creeping into their veins from the dying trunk and branches!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis vain, O youth, to fly the call of Apollo.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fling yourselves in the fire, die with a song of spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If die you must in the spring. For none shall look",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the face of Apollo and live, and choose you must",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twixt death in the flame and death after years of sorrow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rooted fast in the earth, feeling the grisly hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not so much in the trunk as in the terrible numbness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Creeping up to the laurel leaves that never cease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To flourish until you fall. O leaves of me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too sere for coronal wreaths, and fit alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For urns of memory, treasured, perhaps, as themes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For hearts heroic, fearless singers and livers⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Delphic Apollo!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}