{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/plain-as-the-glistering-planets-shine",
 "title": "Plain as the Glistering Planets Shine",
 "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": 5,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Plain as the glistering planets shine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When winds have cleaned the skies,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Her love appeared, appealed for mine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wantoned in her eyes.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Clear as the shining tapers burned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On Cytherea’s shrine,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Those brimming, lustrous beauties turned,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And called and conquered mine.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The beacon-lamp that Hero lit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No fairer shone on sea,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No plainlier summoned will and wit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than hers encouraged me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I thrilled to feel her influence near,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I struck my flag at sight.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Her starry silence smote my ear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like sudden drums at night.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I ran as, at the cannon’s roar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The troops the ramparts man⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As in the holy house of yore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The willing Eli ran.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here, lady, lo! that servant stands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You picked from passing men,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And should you need nor heart nor hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He bows and goes again.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}