{
 "id": "ameen-rihani/independent-blossoms",
 "title": "Independent Blossoms",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ameen Rihani",
 "poet_slug": "ameen-rihani",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Myrtle and Myrrh",
 "book_slug": "myrtle-and-myrrh",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 20,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1905,
  "venue": "Myrtle and Myrrh (1905)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/myrtlemyrrhpoems00riha"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ameen-rihani_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Myrtle_and_Myrrh",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Chant_of_Mystics_and_Other_Poems",
   "https://archive.org/details/myrtlemyrrhpoems00riha",
   "https://archive.org/details/chantofmysticsot00riha"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 32,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When the spring boughs were told",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soon the rose will unfold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Herself in the bower",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of which she is queen,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Their blossoms, beguiling",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sad leaves, said smiling:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“No slaves to a flower",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have we ever been.”",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our lords are the birds.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they love not in words;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They sing when we smile",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And sob when we fall;",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Her lord is the liar⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thief or the buyer⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who smells her the while",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She lives, and that’s all.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ]
 ]
}