{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/dedicatory-poem-for-underwoods",
 "title": "Dedicatory Poem for “Underwoods”",
 "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": null,
 "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": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To her, for I must still regard her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As feminine in her degree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who has been my unkind bombarder",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Year after year, in grief and glee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Year after year, with oaken tree;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet betweenwhiles my laudator",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In terms astonishing to me⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the Right Reverend The Spectator",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I here, a humble dedicator,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bring the last apples from my tree.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In tones of love, in tones of warning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She hailed me through my brief career;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And kiss and buffet, night and morning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Told me my grandmamma was near;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether she praised me high and clear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through her unrivalled circulation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or, sanctimonious insincere,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She damned me with a misquotation⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A chequered but a sweet relation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Say, was it not, my granny dear?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Believe me, granny, altogether",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yours, though perhaps to your surprise.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oft have you spruced my wounded feather,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oft brought a light into my eyes⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For notice still the writer cries.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In any civil age or nation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The book that is not talked of dies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So that shall be my termination:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether in praise or execration,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still, if you love me, criticise!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}