{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/mater-triumphans",
 "title": "Mater Triumphans",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of Travel and Other Verses",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-travel",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 10,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1896,
  "venue": "Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1896 Chatto & Windus volume, the first separate edition. That is not the poems' first appearance: Sidney Colvin's prefatory note to this volume states that they had already been included in the Edinburgh Edition of Stevenson's works. Which printing came first, and in what year, has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoftraveloth00stevrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 71,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Son of my woman’s body, you go, to the drum and fife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To taste the colour of love and the other side of life⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From out of the dainty the rude, the strong from out of the frail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eternally through the ages from the female comes the male.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The ten fingers and toes, and the shell-like nail on each,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The eyes blind as gems and the tongue attempting speech;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Impotent hands in my bosom, and yet they shall wield the sword!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drugged with slumber and milk, you wait the day of the Lord.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Infant bridegroom, uncrowned king, unanointed priest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soldier, lover, explorer, I see you nuzzle the breast.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You that grope in my bosom shall load the ladies with rings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, that came forth through the doors, shall burst the doors of kings.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}