{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/the-old-world-moans-and-topes",
 "title": "The Old World Moans and Topes",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished)",
 "book_slug": "poems-hitherto-unpublished",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 8,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished) (1921)",
  "note": "The volume's title page states that these poems were hitherto unpublished, and no earlier printing of them has been established. The 1921 date is the year of first printing, but not necessarily of this exact copy: the volume states that it is a complimentary edition struck from the same type forms as the Bibliophile Society's edition of the same year.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 34,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The old world moans and topes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is restless and ill at ease;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the old-world politicians",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prescribe for the new disease.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have stooped my head to listen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Its voice is far from strong)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For the burden of its moanings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As it topes all night long.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have watched a patient vigil",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beside its fever bed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I think that I can tell you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The burden of what it said:⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“As sick folk long for morning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And long for night again,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So long for noble objects",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hearts of noble men.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“They long and grope about them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With feverish hands they grope",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For objects of endeavour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And exercise for hope.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“And they shall be our heroes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be our Avatar,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who shall either reach the objects",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or tell us what they are.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}