{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/victor-hugo",
 "title": "Victor Hugo",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "1802⁠–⁠1902",
 "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": 138,
 "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": 61,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Heart of France for a hundred years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Passionate, sensitive, proud, and strong,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Quick to throb with her hopes and fears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fierce to flame with her sense of wrong!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You, who hailed with a morning song",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dream-light gilding a throne of old:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, who turned when the dream grew cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Singing still, to the light that shone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pure from Liberty’s ancient throne,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the human throng!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "You, who dared in the dark eclipse⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the pygmy heir of a giant name",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dimmed the face of the land with shame⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Speak the truth with indignant lips,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Call him little whom men called great,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scoff at him, scorn him, deny him,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Point to the blood on his robe of state,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fling back his bribes and defy him!",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You, who fronted the waves of fate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As you faced the sea from your island home,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Exiled, yet with a soul elate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sending songs o’er the rolling foam,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Bidding the heart of man to wait",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the day when all should see",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Floods of wrath from the frowning skies",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fall on an Empire founded in lies,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And France again be free!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "You, who came in the Terrible Year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swiftly back to your broken land,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now to your heart a thousand times more dear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prayed for her, sung to her, fought for her,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Patiently, fervently wrought for her,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till once again,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "After the storm of fear and pain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "High in the heavens the star of France stood clear!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You, who knew that a man must take",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Good and ill with a steadfast soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Holding fast, while the billows roll",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over his head, to the things that make",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Life worth living for great and small,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Honour and pity and truth,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart and the hope of youth,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And the good God over all!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, to whom work was rest,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Dauntless Toiler of the Sea,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Following ever the joyful quest",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of beauty on the shores of old Romance,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bard of the poor of France,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And warrior-priest of world-wide charity!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You who loved little children best",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the poets that ever sung,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Great heart, golden heart,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Old, and yet ever young,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Minstrel of liberty,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Lover of all free, winged things,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now at last you are free⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Your soul has its wings!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Heart of France for a hundred years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Floating far in the light that never fails you,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the turmoil of mortal hopes and fears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Victor, forever victor, the whole world hails you!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}