{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/the-consecration-of-braille",
 "title": "The Consecration of Braille",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "To Mrs. A. Baker",
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Volume Fourteen",
 "book_slug": "works-swanston-edition-volume-14",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 10,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Volume Fourteen (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from the 'Additional Poems' at the end of volume XIV of the Swanston Edition, a collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance, and which earlier book or magazine printed it first has not been established here. The year itself is disputed: the Archive.org catalogue record cited for this volume gives 1911, while the volume's own title page reads MDCCCCXII, that is 1912.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlou14stev"
  ]
 },
 "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": 8,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I was a barren tree before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I blew a quenchèd coal,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I could not, on their midnight shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lonely blind console.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A moment, lend your hand, I bring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My sheaf for you to bind,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And you can teach my words to sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the darkness of the blind.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}