{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/to-rosabelle",
 "title": "To Rosabelle",
 "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": 96,
 "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": 39,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When my young lady has grown great and staid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in long raiment wondrously arrayed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She may take pleasure with a smile to know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How she delighted men-folk long ago.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For her long after, then, this tale I tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the two fans and fairy Rosabelle.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hot was the day; her weary sire and I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sat in our chairs companionably nigh,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each with a headache sat her sire and I.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Instant the hostess waked: she viewed the scene,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Divined the giants’ languor by their mien,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with hospitable care",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tackled at once an Atlantean chair.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her pygmy stature scarce attained the seat⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She dragged it where she would, and with her feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Surmounted; thence, a Phaeton launched, she crowned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The vast plateau of the piano, found",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And culled a pair of fans; wherewith equipped,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our mountaineer back to the level slipped;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And being landed, with considerate eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Betwixt her elders dealt her double prize;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The small to me, the greater to her sire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As painters now advance and now retire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before the growing canvas, and anon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once more approach and put the climax on:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So she awhile withdrew, her piece she viewed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For half a moment half supposed it good⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spied her mistake, nor sooner spied than ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To remedy; and with the greater fan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In gracious better thought, equipped the guest.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From ill to well, from better on to best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Arts move; the homely, like the plastic kind;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And high ideals fired that infant mind.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once more she backed, once more a space apart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Considered and reviewed her work of art:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doubtful at first, and gravely yet awhile;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till all her features blossomed in a smile.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the child, waking at the call of bliss,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To each she ran, and took and gave a kiss.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}