{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/voluntary",
 "title": "Voluntary",
 "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": 35,
 "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": 35,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 31,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Here in the quiet eve",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My thankful eyes receive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The quiet light.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "I see the trees stand fair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against the faded air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And star by star prepare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The perfect night.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And in my bosom, lo!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Content and quiet grow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Toward perfect peace.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And now when day is done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brief day of wind and sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pure stars, one by one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their troop increase.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Keen pleasure and keen grief",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give place to great relief:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Farewell my tears!",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Still sounds toward me float;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hear the bird’s small note,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sheep from the far sheepcote,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lowing steers.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For lo! the war is done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo, now the battle won,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The trumpets still.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "The shepherd’s slender strain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The country sounds again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Awake in wood and plain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On haugh and hill.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Loud wars and loud loves cease.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I welcome my release;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hail once more",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Free foot and way world-wide.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And oft at eventide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Light love to talk beside",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hostel door.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}