{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/i-have-a-friend-i-have-a-story",
 "title": "I Have a Friend; I Have a Story",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished)",
 "book_slug": "poems-hitherto-unpublished",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 12,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished) (1921)",
  "note": "The volume's title page states that these poems were hitherto unpublished, and no earlier printing of them has been established. The 1921 date is the year of first printing, but not necessarily of this exact copy: the volume states that it is a complimentary edition struck from the same type forms as the Bibliophile Society's edition of the same year.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I have a friend; I have a story;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have a life that’s hard to live;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I love; my love is all my glory;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have been hurt and I forgive.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have a friend; none could be better;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I stake my heart upon my friend!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I love; I trust her to the letter;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will she deceive me in the end?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She is my love, my life, my jewel;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My hope, my star, my dear delight.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "God! but the ways of God are cruel⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That love should bow the knee to spite!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She loves, she hates⁠—a foul alliance!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One King shall rule in one estate.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I only love; ’tis all my science;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A while, and she will only hate.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}