{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/dedication",
 "title": "Dedication",
 "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": 7,
 "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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My first gift and my last, to you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I dedicate this fascicle of songs⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The only wealth I have:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just as they are, to you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I speak the truth in soberness, and say",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I had rather bring a light to your clear eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had rather hear you praise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This bosomful of songs",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Than that the whole, hard world with one consent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In one continuous chorus of applause",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poured forth for me and mine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The homage of ripe praise.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I write the finis here against my love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This is my love’s last epitaph and tomb.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here the road forks, and I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Go my way, far from yours.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}