{
 "id": "oscar-wilde/the-true-knowledge",
 "title": "The True Knowledge",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Oscar Wilde",
 "poet_slug": "oscar-wilde",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": "… ἀναγκαίως δ’ ἔχει / Βίον θερίζειν ὥστε κάρπιμον στάχυν, / καὶ τὸν μὲν εἶναι τὸν δὲ μή.",
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1876,
  "venue": "The Irish Monthly 4, no. 39 (September 1876), p. 594",
  "note": "Reprinted in Dublin Verses and in Echoes from Kottabos (1906), the latter without the Greek quotation. 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": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "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": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou knowest all⁠—I seek in vain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What lands to till or sow with seed⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The land is black with briar and weed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor cares for falling tears or rain.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou knowest all⁠—I sit and wait",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With blinded eyes and hands that fail,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the last lifting of the veil",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the first opening of the gate.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou knowest all; I cannot see.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I trust I shall not live in vain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I know that we shall meet again",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In some divine eternity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}