{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/a-martial-elegy-for-some-lead-soldiers",
 "title": "A Martial Elegy for Some Lead Soldiers",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Appendix",
 "book_slug": "works-edinburgh-edition-appendix",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1898,
  "venue": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Appendix (1898)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1898 Appendix volume of the Edinburgh Edition. For most of these verses that is not the first printing: the volume reproduces in facsimile the Davos Press cuts and rhymes that Stevenson wrote and engraved between the autumn of 1880 and the summer of 1882 and that his stepson Lloyd Osbourne printed at the time. The volume's own bibliographical note states that only the two Moral Tales, 'Robin and Ben' and 'The Builder's Doom', are printed here for the first time. Which Davos booklet printed a given rhyme, and in what year, is not established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlvol28stev"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "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": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "For certain soldiers lately dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our-reverent dirge shall here be said.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Them, when their martial leader called,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No dread preparative appalled;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But leaden hearted, leaden heeled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I marked them steadfast in the field",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death grimly sided with the foe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And smote each leaden hero low.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Proudly they perished one by one:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dread Pea-cannon’s work was done",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O not for them the tears we shed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consigned to their congenial lead;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But while unmoved their sleep they take,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We mourn for their dear Captain’s sake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For their dear Captain, who shall smart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both in his pocket and his heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who saw his heroes shed their gore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lacked a shilling to buy more!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}