{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/ballade-mystique",
 "title": "Ballade Mystique",
 "ordinal": "XXVIII",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "C. S. Lewis",
 "poet_slug": "c-s-lewis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spirits in Bondage",
 "book_slug": "spirits-in-bondage",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 25,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1919,
  "venue": "Spirits in Bondage (1919)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-28.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003",
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101865124"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The big, red house is bare and lone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The stony garden waste and sere",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With blight of breezes ocean blown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To pinch the wakening of the year;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My kindly friends with busy cheer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My wretchedness could plainly show.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They tell me I am lonely here⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What do they know? What do they know?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They think that while the gables moan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And easements creak in winter drear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I should be piteously alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without the speech of comrades dear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And friendly for my sake they fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It grieves them thinking of me so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While all their happy life is near⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What do they know? What do they know?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That I have seen the Dagda’s throne",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In sunny lands without a tear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And found a forest all my own",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To ward with magic shield and spear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, through the stately towers I rear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For my desire, around me go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Immortal shapes of beauty clear:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They do not know, they do not know.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The friends I have without a peer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond the western ocean’s glow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wither the faerie galleys steer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They do not know: how should they know?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}