{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/the-canoe-speaks",
 "title": "The Canoe Speaks",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Underwoods",
 "book_slug": "underwoods",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 3,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1887,
  "venue": "Underwoods (1887)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/underwoods00stevrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "On the great streams the ships may go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About men’s business to and fro.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On crystal waters ankle-deep:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, whose diminutive design,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is fashioned on so frail a mould,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A hand may launch, a hand withhold:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, rather, with the leaping trout",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wind, among lilies, in and out;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, the unnamed, inviolate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Green, rustic rivers navigate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My dipping paddle scarcely shakes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The berry in the bramble-brakes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still forth on my green way I wend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beside the cottage garden-end;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by the nested angler fare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And take the lovers unaware.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By willow wood and water-wheel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speedily fleets my touching keel;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By all retired and shady spots",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where prosper dim forget-me-nots;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By meadows where at afternoon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The growing maidens troop in June",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To loose their girdles on the grass.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah! speedier than before the glass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The backward toilet goes; and swift",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As swallows quiver, robe and shift",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the rough country stockings lie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Around each young divinity.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When, following the recondite brook,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sudden upon this scene I look,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And light with unfamiliar face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On chaste Diana’s bathing-place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loud ring the hills about and all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shallows are abandoned.⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}