{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/the-well-head",
 "title": "The Well-Head",
 "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 "book": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished)",
 "book_slug": "poems-hitherto-unpublished",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": 2,
 "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  "venue": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished) (1921)",
  "note": "The volume's title page states that these poems were hitherto unpublished, and no earlier printing of them has been established.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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The withered rushes made a flame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Across the marsh of rusty red;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The dreary plover ever came",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sang above the old well-head.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "About it crouch the junipers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Green-black and dewed with berries white,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the grass the water stirs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aloud all day, aloud all night.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The spring has scarcely come, ’tis said;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet sweet and pleasant art thou still,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "‘Mong withered rushes, old well-head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the sallow-shouldered hill.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The grass from which these waters came,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These waters swelling from the sod,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Had been a bible unto some,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A grave phylactery of God.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The Ayrshire peasant, years ago,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drank down religion in a cool",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep draught of waters such as flow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From out this pebbly little pool.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But different far is it with me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here, where the piping curlews call;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The creatures will not let me see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The great creator of them all.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And I should choose to go to sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With Merlin in Broceliande,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To hear the elm boughs hiss and sweep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In summer winds on either hand.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To cling to forest-trees and grass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And this dear world of hill and plain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For fear, whatever came to pass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God would not give as good again.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And some may use the gospel so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is a pharos unto me,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And guide themselves to hell, although",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their chart should lead them unto Thee.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lord, shut our eyes or shut our mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or give us love, in case we fall;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis better to go maim and blind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than not to reach the Lord at all.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}