{
 "id": "david-park-barnitz/the-house-of-youth",
 "title": "The House of Youth",
 "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": 37,
 "container": "Part II",
 "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-2.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": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Far in the melancholy hills it stands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far off; and through the vista of the years,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Down which my soul its helpless journey steers,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It flames a fire to lighten all the lands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A fire that burns me and a flame that brands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Me, whose dead days pass slow as heavy tears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The road my footsteps tread is dim and still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There darkness abides and silence endlessly,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the low way mine eyes can scarcely see;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet the light and sound from that far hill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the sky’s fire my weary pathway fill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So that it seems a place of life to be.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The world is but a background for it there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There where it stands, loud like a beaten lyre,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And flames blood-red like some vast funeral-pyre,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereat my heart to fail doth not forbear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the things that have been made soe’er",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only the House remains, a quenchless fire.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah God, that this thing were not in the world⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hateful House that flames with light and song",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And weary singing all the ages long;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah that ev’n this might in the dust be hurl’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And crush’d and slain, even as my heart, where curl’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The kindly armies of the worm do throng.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yea, surely I have seen it long ago,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far sunken in the weary dust of time;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea surely even that stair so hard to climb",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I climb’d, and strode its hallways to and fro;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The which were bright with many lamps aglow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And loud with choristers in ceaseless chime.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}