{
 "id": "david-park-barnitz/ballad",
 "title": "Ballad",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "David Park Barnitz",
 "poet_slug": "david-park-barnitz",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Book of Jade",
 "book_slug": "the-book-of-jade",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 19,
 "container": "Part I",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1901,
  "venue": "The Book of Jade (1901)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofjade00gautiala"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/david-park-barnitz_the-book-of-jade",
  "file": "part-1.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46827",
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofjade00gautiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_overland-monthly-and-out-west-magazine_1901-01_37_1"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 43,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 43,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The lady rode ’neath the strange sky’s pall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the leafy woods funereal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the length of her moonlit way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was wanly white as the light of day;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Solemnly rob’d she rode along,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unmindful of their droning throng",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That throng’d her shadowy path, alas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though to see her funeral pass;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So through the mournful forest slow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her palfrey’s silken feet did go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bearing her solemnly like a god",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the shadow-haunted sod;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She laught to see the dead desire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That even now her life should tire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She laught to think that to the earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They call’d her that was full of mirth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And though before her horse’s head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Throng’d the wan legions of the dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wanly attempting to stop her way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She halted not for their legions gray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But rode through the midnight’s mystic noon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under the far gaze of the moon.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then out from the dying woods at last",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the moonlit plain she passt;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The misty stars were almost dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sunk in the heavens overhead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While low down in the solemn skies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The white moon wan’d as one that dies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Solemnly through the misty air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She rode with gold gems in her hair;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bright were her holy eyes divine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And red her lips as the red red wine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At last in the unceasing night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down from her palfrey she doth alight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the strange murmuring of the sea;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She climbs the tall stair fearlessly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cometh at last to her chamber high",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beneath the wide face of the sky.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At last her journey being done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She hath her golden stays undone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And being a little wearied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath laid her naked on her bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thinking to slumber like the dead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}