{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/small-is-the-trust-when-love-is-green",
 "title": "Small Is the Trust When Love Is Green",
 "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": 49,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Small is the trust when love is green",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In sap of early years;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A little thing steps in between",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And kisses turn to tears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Awhile⁠—and see how love be grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In loveliness and power!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Awhile, it loves the sweets alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But next it loves the sour.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A little love is none at all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That wanders or that fears;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A hearty love dwells still at call",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To kisses or to tears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Such then be mine, my love to give,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And such be yours to take:⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A faith to hold, a life to live,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For lovingkindness’ sake:",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Should you be sad, should you be gay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or should you prove unkind,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A love to hold the growing way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And keep the helping mind:⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A love to turn the laugh on care",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When wrinkled care appears,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, with an equal will, to share",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your losses and your tears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}