{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/to-kalakaua",
 "title": "To Kalakaua",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "(With a Present of a Pearl)",
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of Travel and Other Verses",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-travel",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 26,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1896,
  "venue": "Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1896 Chatto & Windus volume, the first separate edition. That is not the poems' first appearance: Sidney Colvin's prefatory note to this volume states that they had already been included in the Edinburgh Edition of Stevenson's works. Which printing came first, and in what year, has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoftraveloth00stevrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The Silver Ship, my King⁠—that was her name",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the bright islands whence your fathers came⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Silver Ship, at rest from winds and tides,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Below your palace in your harbour rides:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the seafarers, sitting safe on shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like eager merchants count their treasures o’er.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One gift they find, one strange and lovely thing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now doubly precious since it pleased a king.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The right, my liege, is ancient as the lyre",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For bards to give to kings what kings admire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis mine to offer for Apollo’s sake;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And since the gift is fitting, yours to take.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To golden hands the golden pearl I bring:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ocean jewel to the island king.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}