{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/sonnets",
 "title": "Sonnets",
 "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": 98,
 "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": 229,
  "n_stanzas": 18,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Nor judge me light, though light at times I seem,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lightly in the stress of fortune bear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The innumerable flaws of changeful care⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor judge me light for this, nor rashly deem",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Office forbid to mortals, kept supreme",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And separate the prerogative of God!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That seaman idle who is borne abroad",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the far haven by the favouring stream.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not he alone that to contrarious seas",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Opposes, all night long, the unwearied oar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not he alone, by high success endeared,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall reach the Port; but, winged, with some light breeze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall they, with upright keels, pass in before",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom easy Taste, the golden pilot, steered.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So shall this book wax like unto a well,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fairy with mirrored flowers about the brim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or like some tarn that wailing curlews skim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glassing the sallow uplands or brown fell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so, as men go down into a dell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Weary with noon) to find relief and shade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When on the uneasy sick-bed we are laid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We shall go down into thy book, and tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The leaves, once blank, to build again for us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old summer dead and ruined, and the time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of later autumn with the corn in stook.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So shalt thou stint the meagre winter thus",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his projected triumph, and the rime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall melt before the sunshine in thy book.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have a hoard of treasure in my breast;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The grange of memory steams against the door,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Full of my bygone lifetime’s garnered store⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old pleasures crowned with sorrow for a zest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old sorrow grown a joy, old penance blest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chastened remembrance of the sins of yore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, like a new evangel, more and more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Supports our halting will toward the best.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah! what to us the barren after years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May bring of joy or sorrow, who can tell?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, knowing not, who cares? It may be well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That we shall find old pleasures and old fears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And our remembered childhood seen thro’ tears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The best of Heaven and the worst of Hell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As starts the absent dreamer when a train,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suddenly disengulphed below his feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Roars forth into the sunlight, to its seat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My soul was shaken with immediate pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Intolerable as the scanty breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of that one word blew utterly away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fragile mist of fair deceit that lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er the bleak years that severed me from death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yes, at the sight I quailed; but, not unwise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or not, O God, without some nervous thread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of that best valour, Patience, bowed my head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with firm bosom and most steadfast eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strong in all high resolve, prepared to tread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The unlovely path that leads me toward the skies.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not undelightful, friend, our rustic ease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To grateful hearts; for by especial hap,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep nested in the hill’s enormous lap,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With its own ring of walls and grove of trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sits, in deep shelter, our small cottage⁠—nor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far-off is seen, rose carpeted and hung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With clematis, the quarry whence she sprung,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O mater pulchra filia pulchrior,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whither in early spring, unharnessed folk,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We join the pairing swallows, glad to stay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, loosened in the hills, remote, unseen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From its tall trees, it breathes a slender smoke",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To heaven, and in the noon of sultry day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stands, coolly buried, to the neck in green.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As in the hostel by the bridge I sate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nailed with indifference fondly deemed complete,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And (O strange chance, more sorrowful than sweet)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The counterfeit of her that was my fate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dressed in like vesture, graceful and sedate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went quietly up the vacant village street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The still small sound of her most dainty feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shook, like a trumpet blast, my soul’s estate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Instant revolt ran riot through my brain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all night long, thereafter, hour by hour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pageant of dead love before my eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went proudly; and old hopes, broke loose again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the restraint of wisely temperate power,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With ineffectual ardour sought to rise.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The strong man’s hand, the snow-cool head of age,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The certain-footed sympathies of youth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These, and that lofty passion after truth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hunger unsatisfied in priest or sage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or the great men of former years, he needs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That not unworthily would dare to sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Hard task!) black care’s inevitable ring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Settling with years upon the heart that feeds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Incessantly on glory. Year by year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The narrowing toil grows closer round his feet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With disenchanting touch rude-handed time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The unlovely web discloses, and strange fear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leads him at last to eld’s inclement seat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bitter north of life⁠—a frozen clime.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As Daniel, bird-alone, in that far land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kneeling in fervent prayer, with heart-sick eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Turned thro’ the casement toward the westering skies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or as untamed Elijah, that red brand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among the starry prophets; or that band",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And company of Faithful sanctities",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who in all times, when persecutions rise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cherish forgotten creeds with fostering hand:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such do ye seem to me, light-hearted crew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O turned to friendly arts with all your will,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That keep a little chapel sacred still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One rood of Holy-land in this bleak earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sequestered still (our homage surely due!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the twin Gods of mirthful wine and mirth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "About my fields, in the broad sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And blaze of noon, there goeth one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Barefoot and robed in blue, to scan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the hard eye of the husbandman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My harvests and my cattle. Her,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When even puts the birds astir",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And day has set in the great woods,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We seek, among her garden roods,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With bells and cries in vain: the while",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lamps, plate, and the decanter smile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the forgotten board. But she,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deaf, blind, and prone on face and knee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgets time, family, and feast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And digs like a demented beast.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Tall as a guardsman, pale as the east at dawn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who strides in strange apparel on the lawn?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rails for his breakfast? routs his vassals out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Like boys escaped from school) with song and shout?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kind and unkind, his Maker’s final freak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Part we deride the child, part dread the antique!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See where his gang, like frogs, among the dew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crouch at their duty, an unquiet crew;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Adjust their staring kilts; and their swift eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Turn still to him who sits to supervise.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He in the midst, perched on a fallen tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eyes them at labour; and, guitar on knee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now ministers alarm, now scatters joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now twangs a halting chord, now tweaks a boy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thorough in all, my resolute vizier",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plays both the despot and the volunteer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Exacts with fines obedience to my laws,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for his music, too, exacts applause.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The Adorner of the uncomely⁠—those",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amidst whose tall battalions goes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her pretty person out and in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All day with an endearing din,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of censure and encouragement;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when all else is tried in vain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See her sit down and weep again.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She weeps to conquer;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She varies on her grenadiers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From satire up to girlish tears!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or rather to behold her when",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She plies for me the unresting pen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when the loud assault of squalls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resounds upon the roof and walls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the low thunder growls and I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Raise my dictating voice on high.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What glory for a boy of ten",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who now must three gigantic men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And two enormous, dapple grey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "New Zealand pack-horses array",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lead, and wisely resolute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our daylong business execute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the far shoreside town. His soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glows in his bosom like a coal;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His innocent eyes glitter again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his hand trembles on the rein.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once he reviews his whole command,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And chivalrously planting hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On hip⁠—a borrowed attitude⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rides off downhill into the wood.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I meanwhile in the populous house apart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sit snugly chambered, and my silent art",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Uninterrupted, unremitting ply",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before the dawn, by morning lamplight, by",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The glow of smelting noon, and when the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dips past my westering hill and day is done;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, bending still over my trade of words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hear the morning and the evening birds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The morning and the evening stars behold;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So there apart I sit as once of old",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Napier in wizard Merchiston; and my",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brown innocent aides in home and husbandry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wonder askance. What ails the boss? they ask.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Him, richest of the rich, an endless task",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before the earliest birds or servants stir",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Calls and detains him daylong prisoner?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He whose innumerable dollars hewed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This cleft in the boar and devil-haunted wood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bade therein, from sun to seas and skies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His many-windowed, painted palace rise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Red-roofed, blue-walled, a rainbow on the hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A wonder in the forest glade: he still,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Unthinkable Aladdin, dawn and dark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scribbles and scribbles, like a German clerk.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We see the fact, but tell, O tell us why?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My reverend washman and wise butler cry.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Meanwhile at times the manifold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Imperishable perfumes of the past",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And coloured pictures rise on me thick and fast:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I remember the white rime, the loud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lamplitten city, shops, and the changing crowd;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I remember home and the old time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The winding river, the white moving rhyme,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The autumn robin by the riverside",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That pipes in the grey eve.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The old lady (so they say), but I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Admire your young vitality.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still brisk of foot, still busy and keen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In and about and up and down.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I hear you pass with bustling feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The long verandahs round, and beat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your bell, and “Lotu! Lotu!” cry;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus calling our queer company,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In morning or in evening dim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To prayers and the oft mangled hymn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All day you watch across the sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The silent, shining cloudlands ply,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, huge as countries, swift as birds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beshade the isles by halves and thirds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till each with battlemented crest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stands anchored in the ensanguined west,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An Alp enchanted. All the day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You hear the exuberant wind at play,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In vast, unbroken voice uplift,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In roaring tree, round whistling clift.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}