{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/the-foolhardy-geographer",
 "title": "The Foolhardy Geographer",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Appendix",
 "book_slug": "works-edinburgh-edition-appendix",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 14,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1898,
  "venue": "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Appendix (1898)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1898 Appendix volume of the Edinburgh Edition. For most of these verses that is not the first printing: the volume reproduces in facsimile the Davos Press cuts and rhymes that Stevenson wrote and engraved between the autumn of 1880 and the summer of 1882 and that his stepson Lloyd Osbourne printed at the time. The volume's own bibliographical note states that only the two Moral Tales, 'Robin and Ben' and 'The Builder's Doom', are printed here for the first time. Which Davos booklet printed a given rhyme, and in what year, is not established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlvol28stev"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
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  "longest_line_chars": 41,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The howling desert miles around,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tinkling brook the only sound⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearied with all his toils and feats,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The traveller dines on potted meats;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On potted meats and princely wines,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not wisely but too well he dines.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The brindled Tiger loud may roar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "High may the hovering Vulture soar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas! regardless of them all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soon shall the empurpled glutton sprawl⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soon, in the desert’s hushed repose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall trumpet tidings through his nose!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alack, unwise! that nasal song",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall be the Ounce’s dinner-gong!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A blemish in the cut appears;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas! it cost both blood and tears.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The glancing graver swerved aside,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fast flowed the artist’s vital tide!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now the apologetic bard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Demands indulgence for his pard!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}