{
 "id": "elizabeth-barrett-browning/i",
 "title": "I",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning",
 "poet_slug": "elizabeth-barrett-browning",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Sonnets from the Portuguese",
 "book_slug": "sonnets-from-the-portuguese",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 1,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1850,
  "venue": "Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://github.com/standardebooks/elizabeth-barrett-browning_sonnets-from-the-portuguese",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2002"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/elizabeth-barrett-browning_sonnets-from-the-portuguese",
  "file": "sonnets-from-the-portuguese.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2002",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100114123"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I thought once how Theocritus had sung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who each one in a gracious hand appears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bear a gift for mortals, old or young;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those of my own life, who by turns had flung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a voice said in mastery, while I strove:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Guess now who holds thee!”⁠—“Death!” I said. But there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The silver answer rang: “Not Death, but Love.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}