{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/the-old-chimaeras-old-receipts",
 "title": "The Old Chimaeras, Old Receipts",
 "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": 8,
 "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The old Chimaeras, old receipts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For making “happy land,”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The old political beliefs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swam close before my hand.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The grand old communistic myths",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a middle state of grace,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Quite dead, but not yet gone to Hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And walking for a space,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Quite dead, and looking it, and yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All eagerness to show",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Social-Contract forgeries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By Chatterton⁠—Rousseau⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A hundred such as these I tried,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hundreds after that,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I fitted Social Theories",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As one would fit a hat!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Full many a marsh-fire lured me on,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I reached at many a star,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I reached and grasped them and behold⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The stump of a cigar!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All through the sultry sweltering day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweat ran down my brow,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The still plains heard my distant strokes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That have been silenced now.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This way and that, now up, now down,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hailed full many a blow.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas! beneath my weary arm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thicket seemed to grow.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I take the lesson, wipe my brow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And throw my axe aside,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, sorely wearied, I go home",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the tranquil eventide.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And soon the rising moon, that lights",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The eve of my defeat,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall see me sitting as of yore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By my old master’s feet.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}