{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/william-h-herndon",
 "title": "William H. Herndon",
 "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": 203,
 "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": {
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  "n_stanzas": 1,
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  "longest_line_chars": 55,
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  [
   {
    "text": "There by the window in the old house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My days of labor closed, sitting out life’s decline,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Day by day did I look in my memory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As one who gazes in an enchantress’ crystal globe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I saw the figures of the past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Move through the incredible sphere of time.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And throw himself over a deathless destiny,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Master of great armies, head of the republic,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The epic hopes of a people;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where imperishable shields and swords were beaten out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From spirits tempered in heaven.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look in the crystal! See how he hastens on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the place where his path comes up to the path",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a child of Plutarch and Shakespeare.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Often and often I saw you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over my house-top at solemn sunsets,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There by my window,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}