{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/prologue",
 "title": "Prologue",
 "ordinal": null,
 "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": 1,
 "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-prologue.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": 19,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 67,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "As of old Phoenician men, to the Tin Isles sailing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Straight against the sunset and the edges of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chaunted loud above the storm and the strange sea’s wailing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Legends of their people and the land that gave them birth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sang aloud to Baal-Peor, sang unto the horned maiden,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sang how they should come again with the Brethon treasure laden,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sang of all the pride and glory of their hardy enterprise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How they found the outer islands, where the unknown stars arise;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the rowers down below, rowing hard as they could row,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Toiling at the stroke and feather through the wet and wary weather,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even they forgot their burden in the measure of a song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the merchants and the masters and the bondsmen all together,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dreaming of the wondrous islands, brought the gallant ship along;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So in mighty deeps alone on the chainless breezes blown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In my oracle of verses I will sing of lands unknown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flying from the scarlet city where a Lord that knows no pity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mocks the broken people praying round his iron throne,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Sing about the Hidden Country fresh and full of quiet green.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sailing over seas uncharted to a port that none has seen.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}