{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/this-gloomy-northern-day",
 "title": "This Gloomy Northern Day",
 "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": 25,
 "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": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 32,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "This gloomy northern day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or this yet gloomier night,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Has moved a something high",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "In my cold heart; and I,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "That do not often pray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would pray tonight.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And first on Thee I call",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For bread, O God of might!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough of bread for all⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That through the famished town",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Cold hunger may lie down",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "With none tonight.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I pray for hope no less,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strong-sinewed hope, O Lord,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That to the struggling young",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "May preach with brazen tongue",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Stout Labour, high success,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bright reward.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And last, O Lord, I pray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For hearts resigned and bold",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To trudge the dusty way⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hearts stored with song and joke",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And warmer than a cloak",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Against the cold.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If nothing else he had,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He who has this, has all.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "This comforts under pain;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "This, through the stinging rain,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Keeps ragamuffin glad",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Behind the wall.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This makes the sanded inn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A palace for a Prince,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And this, when griefs begin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cruel fate annoys,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Can bring to mind the joys",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of ages since.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}