{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/long-time-i-lay-in-little-ease",
 "title": "Long Time I Lay in Little Ease",
 "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": 59,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 35,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Long time I lay in little ease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, placed by the Turanian,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Marseilles, the many-masted, sees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The blue Mediterranean.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now songful in the hour of sport,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now riotous for wages,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She camps around her ancient port,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As ancient of the ages.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Algerian airs through all the place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unconquerably sally;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Incomparable women pace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shadows of the alley.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And high o’er dark and graving yard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And where the sky is paler,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The golden virgin of the guard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shines, beckoning the sailor.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She hears the city roar on high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thief, prostitute, and banker;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She sees the masted vessels lie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Immovably at anchor.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She sees the snowy islets dot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sea’s immortal azure,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And If, that castellated spot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tower, turret, and embrasure.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}