{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/to-h-f-brown",
 "title": "To H. F. Brown",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "(Written During a Dangerous Sickness)",
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Underwoods",
 "book_slug": "underwoods",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 13,
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I sit and wait a pair of oars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On cis-Elysian river-shores.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the immortal dead have sate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis mine to sit and meditate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To re-ascend life’s rivulet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without remorse, without regret;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sing my Alma Genetrix",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among the willows of the Styx.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And lo, as my serener soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did these unhappy shores patrol,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wait with an attentive ear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The coming of the gondolier,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your fire-surviving roll I took,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your spirited and happy book;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereon, despite my frowning fate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It did my soul so recreate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all my fancies fled away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On a Venetian holiday.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now, thanks to your triumphant care,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your pages clear as April air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sails, the bells, the birds, I know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the far-off Friulan snow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The land and sea, the sun and shade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the blue even lamp-inlaid.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For this, for these, for all, O friend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For your whole book from end to end⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Paron Piero’s mutton-ham⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I your defaulting debtor am.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Perchance, reviving, yet may I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To your sea-paven city hie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in a felze some day yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Light at your pipe my cigarette.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}