{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/armies-in-the-fire",
 "title": "Armies in the Fire",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Child's Garden of Verses",
 "book_slug": "childs-garden-of-verses",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 47,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1885,
  "venue": "A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/achildsgardenve04stevgoog"
  ]
 },
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The lamps now glitter down the street;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Faintly sound the falling feet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the blue even slowly falls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About the garden trees and walls.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now in the falling of the gloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The red fire paints the empty room:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And warmly on the roof it looks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And flickers on the backs of books.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Armies march by tower and spire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of cities blazing, in the fire;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till as I gaze with staring eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The armies fade, the lustre dies.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then once again the glow returns;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Again the phantom city burns;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And down the red-hot valley, lo!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The phantom armies marching go!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Blinking embers, tell me true",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where are those armies marching to,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what the burning city is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That crumbles in your furnaces!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}