{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/zenas-witt",
 "title": "Zenas Witt",
 "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": 39,
 "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": 17,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I was sixteen, and I had the most terrible dreams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And specks before my eyes, and nervous weakness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I couldn’t remember the books I read,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like Frank Drummer who memorized page after page.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my back was weak, and I worried and worried,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I was embarrassed and stammered my lessons,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when I stood up to recite I’d forget",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Everything that I had studied.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, I saw Dr. Weese’s advertisement,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there I read everything in print,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just as if he had known me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And about the dreams which I couldn’t help.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So I knew I was marked for an early grave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I worried until I had a cough,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then the dreams stopped.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then I slept the sleep without dreams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here on the hill by the river.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}