{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/portrait-and-reality",
 "title": "Portrait and Reality",
 "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": 68,
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 46,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If on the closed curtain of my sight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My fancy paints thy portrait far away,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I see thee still the same, by night or day;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Crossing the crowded street, or moving bright",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "‘Mid festal throngs, or reading by the light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of shaded lamp some friendly poet’s lay,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Or shepherding the children at their play⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The same sweet self, and my unchanged delight.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But when I see thee near, I recognize",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In every dear familiar way some strange",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Perfection, and behold in April guise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The magic of thy beauty that doth range",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Through many moods with infinite surprise⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never the same, and sweeter with each change.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}