{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/proem",
 "title": "Proem",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Appendix",
 "book_slug": "works-edinburgh-edition-appendix",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 10,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1898,
  "venue": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Appendix (1898)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1898 Appendix volume of the Edinburgh Edition. For most of these verses that is not the first printing: the volume reproduces in facsimile the Davos Press cuts and rhymes that Stevenson wrote and engraved between the autumn of 1880 and the summer of 1882 and that his stepson Lloyd Osbourne printed at the time. The volume's own bibliographical note states that only the two Moral Tales, 'Robin and Ben' and 'The Builder's Doom', are printed here for the first time. Which Davos booklet printed a given rhyme, and in what year, is not established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlvol28stev"
  ]
 },
 "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": 1,
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  "longest_line_chars": 39,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Unlike the common run of men,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "I wield a double power to please,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And use the Graver and the Pen",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With equal aptitude and ease.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "I move with that illustrious crew,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The ambidextrous Kings of Art;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And every mortal thing I do",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Brings ringing money in the mart.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hence, to the morning hour, the mead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The forest and the stream perceive",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Me wandering as the muses lead⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or back returning in the eve.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Two muses like two maiden aunts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The engraving and the singing muse,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Follow, through all my favorite haunts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My devious traces in the dews.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "To guide and cheer me, each attends;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each speeds my rapid task along;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "One to my cuts her ardour lends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One breathes her magic in my song.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}