{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/a-familiar-epistle",
 "title": "A Familiar Epistle",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Volume Fourteen",
 "book_slug": "works-swanston-edition-volume-14",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 1,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Volume Fourteen (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from the 'Additional Poems' at the end of volume XIV of the Swanston Edition, a collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance, and which earlier book or magazine printed it first has not been established here. The year itself is disputed: the Archive.org catalogue record cited for this volume gives 1911, while the volume's own title page reads MDCCCCXII, that is 1912.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlou14stev"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-louis-stevenson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlvol28stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlou14stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoemsandvaria00stevuoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31291",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30659",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/441",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems,_by_Robert_Louis_Stevenson,_hitherto_unpublished"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 66,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Blame me not that this epistle",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the first you have from me;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Idleness hath held me fettered;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "But at last the times are bettered,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And once more I wet my whistle",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here in France beside the sea.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All the green and idle weather,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have had in sun and shower",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Such an easy, warm subsistence,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Such an indolent existence,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I should find it hard to sever",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Day from day and hour from hour.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Many a tract-provided ranter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May upbraid me, dark and sour,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Many a bland Utilitarian,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Or excited Millenarian,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "—“Pereunt et imputantur”⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You must speak to every hour.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But (the very term’s deception)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You at least, my Friend, will see",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "That in sunny grassy meadows,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Trailed across by moving shadows,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To be actively receptive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is as much as man can be.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He that all the winter grapples",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Difficulties⁠—thrust and ward⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Needs to cheer him thro’ his duty",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Memories of sun and beauty,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Orchards with the russet apples",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lying scattered on the sward.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Many such I keep in prison,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Keep them here at heart unseen,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Till my muse again rehearses",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Long years hence, and in my verses",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "You shall meet them re-arisen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ever comely, ever green.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You know how they never perish,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How, in time of later art,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Memories consecrate and sweeten",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Those defaced and tempest-beaten",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Flowers of former years we cherish",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Half a life, against our heart.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Most, those love-fruits withered greenly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those frail, sickly amourettes⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "How they brighten with the distance,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Take new strength and new existence,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Till we see them sitting queenly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crowned and courted by regrets!",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All that loveliest and best is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aureole-fashion round their head,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "They that looked in life but plainly,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "How they stir our spirits vainly",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "When they come to us, Alcestis⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like returning from the dead!",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not the old love but another,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bright she comes at memory’s call,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Our forgotten vows reviving",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To a newer, livelier living,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "As the dead child to the mother",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seems the fairest child of all.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus our Goethe, sacred master,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Travelling backward thro’ his youth,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Surely wandered wrong in trying",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To renew the old, undying",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Loves that cling in memory faster",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than they ever lived in truth.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}