{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/strange-are-the-ways-of-men",
 "title": "Strange Are the Ways of Men",
 "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": 43,
 "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": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 31,
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Strange are the ways of men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And strange the ways of God!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We tread the mazy paths",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all our fathers trod.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We tread them undismayed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And undismayed behold",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The portents of the sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The things that were of old.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The fiery stars pursue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their course in heav’n on high;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And round the ’leaguered town,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crest-tossing heroes cry.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Crest-tossing heroes cry;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And martial fifes declare",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How small, to mortal minds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is merely mortal care.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And to the clang of steel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cry of piercing flute",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the azure peaks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A God shall plant his foot:",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A God in arms shall stand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And seeing wide and far",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The green and golden earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The killing tide of war,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He, with uplifted arm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall to the skies proclaim",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The gleeful fate of man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The noble road to fame!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}