{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/since-i-am-sworn-to-live-my-life",
 "title": "Since I Am Sworn to Live My Life",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished)",
 "book_slug": "poems-hitherto-unpublished",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 21,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished) (1921)",
  "note": "The volume's title page states that these poems were hitherto unpublished, and no earlier printing of them has been established. The 1921 date is the year of first printing, but not necessarily of this exact copy: the volume states that it is a complimentary edition struck from the same type forms as the Bibliophile Society's edition of the same year.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 13,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Since I am sworn to live my life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not to keep an easy heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some men may sit and drink apart⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I bear a banner in the strife.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Some can take quiet thought to wife⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am all day at tierce and carte;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since I am sworn to live my life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not to keep an easy heart.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I follow gaily to the fife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leave wisdom bowed above a chart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And prudence brawling in the mart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dare misfortune to the knife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since I am sworn to live my life.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}