{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/to-a-youth",
 "title": "To a Youth",
 "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 "book": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished)",
 "book_slug": "poems-hitherto-unpublished",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": 14,
 "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  "venue": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished) (1921)",
  "note": "The volume's title page states that these poems were hitherto unpublished, and no earlier printing of them has been established.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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "See, with strong heart O youth, the change",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of mood and season in thy breast.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The intrepid soul that dares the wider range",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall find securer rest.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The variable moods they breed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are but as April sun and shower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That only seem to hinder⁠—truly speed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against the harvest hour.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thy net in all rough waters cast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In all fair pasturelands rejoice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thee shall such wealth of trials lead at last",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To thy true home of choice.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So shalt thou grow, O youth, at length",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strong in endeavor, strong to bear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As having all things borne, thy lease of strength",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not perishable hair.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not the frail tenement of health,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The uneasy mail of stoic pride",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(A Nessus-shirt indeed!) the veer of wealth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In strong continual tide.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not these, but in the constant heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That having all ways tried, at last",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Holds, stout and patient, to the eternal chart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well tested in the past.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O, more than garlands for our heads,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than drum and trumpet sounding loud,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the long line of fluttering banners threads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The many-coloured crowd;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That sense of progress won with ease,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of unconstrained advance in both,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the full circle finished⁠—such as trees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Feel in their own free growth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So shall thy life to plains below,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O not unworthy of the crown!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Equal and pure, by lives yet purer, flow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Companionably down.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}