{
 "id": "ameen-rihani/lilatu-laili",
 "title": "Lilatu Laili",
 "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": 14,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "At night on the radiant Rialto,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the stars in their houses of glass,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I strolled with my soul in my pocket",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And prayed that my night might not pass;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I have seen ’neath the high heels of Beauty",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart and my soul and my shame;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That form! O, how often it lured me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how often I lost in the game!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And how often I walked in the shadow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a Laila a mile and a mile!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But the rapture and bliss of a vision",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would end in a great gush of bile.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To the hints that her garment would whisper",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have listened but I would not dare;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I have seen every one of my fancies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Retreat in the dark of her hair.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have wished that each building around us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was a cedar, a poplar, a pine;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That the men and the women were statues,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the rain that was falling was wine;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That the lights were ethereal flowers;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the cars were the nooks in the wood⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“O, enough!” she exclaimed as she kissed me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“This attic and couch are as good.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}