{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/death-to-the-dead-for-evermore",
 "title": "Death, to the Dead for Evermore",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Poems and Variant Readings",
 "book_slug": "new-poems-and-variant-readings",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 38,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1918,
  "venue": "New Poems and Variant Readings (1918)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1918 Chatto & Windus volume. That is not the first printing: this volume's own preface credits the Bibliophile Society of Boston with having first given these poems light in a privately printed edition. The year of that edition, and which poems it carried, are not established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoemsandvaria00stevuoft"
  ]
 },
 "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": 25,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Death, to the dead forevermore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A King, a God, the last, the best of friends⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whene’er this mortal journey ends",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Disturbs the eternal sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But in the stillness far withdrawn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our dreamless rest forevermore we keep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For as from open windows forth we peep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the night-time star beset",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with dews forever wet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So from this garish life the spirit peers;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lo! as a sleeping city death outspread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where breathe the sleepers evenly; and lo!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After the loud wars, triumphs, trumpets, tears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And clamour of man’s passion, Death appears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we must rise and go.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Soon are eyes tired with sunshine; soon the ears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weary of utterance, seeing all is said;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soon, racked by hopes and fears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The all-pondering, all-contriving head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weary with all things, wearies of the years;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And our sad spirits turn toward the dead;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}