{
 "id": "oscar-wilde/les-ballons",
 "title": "Les Ballons",
 "ordinal": "II",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Oscar Wilde",
 "poet_slug": "oscar-wilde",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Fantaisies Décoratives",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1887,
  "venue": "The Lady's Pictorial, Christmas Number 1887, p. 3, as the second of two “Fantaisies Décoratives”",
  "note": "Printed in light red within a full-page illustration by Bernard Partridge. Mason records that Methuen's collected edition is the first reprint. Stuart Mason, A Bibliography of the Poems of Oscar Wilde (London, 1907), is the authority for this printing.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/abibliographypo00wildgoog"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/oscar-wilde_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Against these turbid turquoise skies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The light and luminous balloons",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dip and drift like satin moons,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Drift like silken butterflies;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Reel with every windy gust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rise and reel like dancing girls,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Float like strange transparent pearls,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fall and float like silver dust.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now to the low leaves they cling,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each with coy fantastic pose,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Each a petal of a rose",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Straining at a gossamer string.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then to the tall trees they climb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like thin globes of amethyst,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wandering opals keeping tryst",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With the rubies of the lime.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}