{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/willie-pennington",
 "title": "Willie Pennington",
 "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": 225,
 "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": 15,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "They called me the weakling, the simpleton,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For my brothers were strong and beautiful,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While I, the last child of parents who had aged,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Inherited only their residue of power.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But they, my brothers, were eaten up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the fury of the flesh, which I had not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made pulp in the activity of the senses, which I had not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hardened by the growth of the lusts, which I had not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though making names and riches for themselves.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then I, the weak one, the simpleton,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resting in a little corner of life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saw a vision, and through me many saw the vision,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not knowing it was through me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus a tree sprang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From me, a mustard seed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}