{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/spring-carol",
 "title": "Spring Carol",
 "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": null,
 "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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When loud by landside streamlets gush,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And clear in the greenwood choirs the thrush,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With sun on the meadows",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And songs in the shadows",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Comes again to me",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "The gift of the tongues of the lea,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "The gift of the tongues of meadows.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Straightway my olden heart returns",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dances with the dancing burns;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It sings with the sparrows;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "To the rain and the (grimy) barrows",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Sings my heart aloud⁠—",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To the silver-bellied cloud,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To the silver rainy arrows.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It bears the song of the skylark down,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And it hears the singing of the town;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And youth on the highways",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And lovers in byways",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Follows and sees:",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And hearkens the song of the leas",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And sings the songs of the highways.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So when the earth is alive with gods,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the lusty ploughman breaks the sod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the grass sings in the meadows,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And the flowers smile in the shadows,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Sits my heart at ease,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Hearing the song of the leas,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Singing the songs of the meadows.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}