{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/the-sick-child",
 "title": "The Sick Child",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Underwoods",
 "book_slug": "underwoods",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 26,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1887,
  "venue": "Underwoods (1887)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/underwoods00stevrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 46,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O Mother, lay your hand on my brow!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O mother, mother, where am I now?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why is the room so gaunt and great?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why am I lying awake so late?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fear not at all: the night is still.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nothing is here that means you ill⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nothing but lamps the whole town through,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never a child awake but you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Mother, mother, speak low in my ear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some of the things are so great and near,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some are so small and far away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have a fear that I cannot say.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What have I done, and what do I fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why are you crying, mother dear?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Out in the city, sounds begin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thank the kind God, the carts come in!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An hour or two more, and God is so kind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The day shall be blue in the window-blind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then shall my child go sweetly asleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dream of the birds and the hills of sheep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}