{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/the-gardener",
 "title": "The Gardener",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Child's Garden of Verses",
 "book_slug": "childs-garden-of-verses",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 53,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1885,
  "venue": "A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/achildsgardenve04stevgoog"
  ]
 },
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The gardener does not love to talk,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He makes me keep the gravel walk;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when he puts his tools away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He locks the door and takes the key.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Away behind the currant row",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where no one else but cook may go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far in the plots, I see him dig,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old and serious, brown and big.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He digs the flowers, green, red, and blue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor wishes to be spoken to.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He digs the flowers and cuts the hay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never seems to want to play.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Silly gardener! summer goes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And winter comes with pinching toes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When in the garden bare and brown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You must lay your barrow down.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Well now, and while the summer stays,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To profit by these garden days,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O how much wiser you would be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To play at Indian wars with me!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}