{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/wendell-p-bloyd",
 "title": "Wendell P. Bloyd",
 "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": 79,
 "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": 71,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "They first charged me with disorderly conduct,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There being no statute on blasphemy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Later they locked me up as insane",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My offense was this:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I said God lied to Adam, and destined him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To lead the life of a fool,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ignorant that there is evil in the world as well as good.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when Adam outwitted God by eating the apple",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And saw through the lie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God drove him out of Eden to keep him from taking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fruit of immortal life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Christ’s sake, you sensible people,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here’s what God Himself says about it in the book of Genesis:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“And the Lord God said, behold the man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is become as one of us” (a little envy, you see),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“To know good and evil” (The all-is-good lie exposed):",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“And now lest he put forth his hand and take",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Therefore the Lord God sent Him forth from the garden of Eden.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(The reason I believe God crucified His Own Son",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To get out of the wretched tangle is, because it sounds just like Him.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}