{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/zilpha-marsh",
 "title": "Zilpha Marsh",
 "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": 230,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 47,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "At four o’clock in late October",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I sat alone in the country school-house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back from the road ’mid stricken fields,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With its open door blurring the shadows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the spectral glow of a dying fire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In an idle mood I was running the planchette⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All at once my wrist grew limp,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my hand moved rapidly over the board,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the name of “Charles Guiteau” was spelled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who threatened to materialize before me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I rose and fled from the room bare-headed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the dusk, afraid of my gift.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And after that the spirits swarmed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chaucer, Caesar, Poe and Marlowe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cleopatra and Mrs. Surratt⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherever I went, with messages⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mere trifling twaddle, Spoon River agreed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You talk nonsense to children, don’t you?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And suppose I see what you never saw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never heard of and have no word for,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I must talk nonsense when you ask me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What it is I see!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}