{
 "id": "oscar-wilde/apologia",
 "title": "Apologia",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Oscar Wilde",
 "poet_slug": "oscar-wilde",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 52,
 "container": "The Fourth Movement",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1881,
  "venue": "Poems (1881)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1057"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/oscar-wilde_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1057",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1338",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lotus_Leaves",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wasted_Days_(from_a_Picture_Painted_by_Miss_V._T.)",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102953450",
   "https://archive.org/details/ravennarecitedin00wildrich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010824214",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006061074",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100217578",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924013571082",
   "https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=pilot18770721-01.2.24"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-19"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Is it thy will⁠—Love that I love so well⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That my Soul’s House should be a tortured spot",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sell ambition at the common mart,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And let dull failure be my vestiture,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Perchance it may be better so⁠—at least",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have not made my heart a heart of stone,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Many a man hath done so; sought to fence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Trodden the dusty road of common sense,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While all the forest sang of liberty,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To where some steep untrodden mountain height",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Caught the last tresses of the Sun God’s hair.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or how the little flower he trod upon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Content if once its leaves were aureoled.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But surely it is something to have been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The best belovèd for a little while,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His purple wings flit once across thy smile.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On my boy’s heart, yet have I burst the bars,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}