{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/block-city",
 "title": "Block City",
 "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": 45,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "What are you able to build with your blocks?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Castles and palaces, temples and docks.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I can be happy and building at home.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There I’ll establish a city for me:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a harbour as well where my vessels may ride.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Great is the palace with pillar and wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A sort of a tower on the top of it all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And steps coming down in an orderly way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This one is sailing and that one is moored:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hark to the song of the sailors on board!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And see, on the steps of my palace, the kings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Coming and going with presents and things!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now I have done with it, down let it go!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All in a moment the town is laid low.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Block upon block lying scattered and free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What is there left of my town by the sea?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet, as I saw it, I see it again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The kirk and the palace, the ships and the men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as long as I live, and where’er I may be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll always remember my town by the sea.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}