{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/mare-liberum",
 "title": "Mare Liberum",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 118,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 29,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You dare to say with perjured lips,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“We fight to make the ocean free”?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, whose black trail of butchered ships",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bestrews the bed of every sea",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where German submarines have wrought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their horrors! Have you never thought⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What you call freedom, men call piracy!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Unnumbered ghosts that haunt the wave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where you have murdered, cry you down;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And seamen whom you would not save,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weave now in weed-grown depths a crown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of shame for your imperious head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A dark memorial of the dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Women and children whom you sent to drown.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, not till thieves are set to guard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gold, and corsairs called to keep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er peaceful commerce watch and ward,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wolves to herd the helpless sheep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall men and women look to thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou ruthless Old Man of the Sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To safeguard law and freedom on the deep!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In nobler breeds we put our trust:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The nations in whose sacred lore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The “Ought” stands out above the “Must,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And honor rules in peace and war.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With these we hold in soul and heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With these we choose our lot and part,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till Liberty is safe on sea and shore.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "London Times",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}