{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/prayer",
 "title": "Prayer",
 "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": 1,
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I ask good things that I detest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With speeches fair;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Heed not, I pray Thee, Lord, my breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But hear my prayer.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I say ill things I would not say⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Things unaware:",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Regard my breast, Lord, in Thy day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not my prayer.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My heart is evil in Thy sight:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My good thoughts flee:",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "O Lord, I cannot wish aright⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wish Thou for me.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O bend my words and acts to Thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "However ill,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "That I, whate’er I say or be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May serve Thee still.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O let my thoughts abide in Thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lest I should fall:",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Show me Thyself in all I see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou Lord of all.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}