{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/the-sad-shepherd",
 "title": "The Sad Shepherd",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Crossways",
 "book_slug": "crossways",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 1,
 "container": "Crossways",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1888,
  "venue": "Crossways (1888)",
  "note": "Year from the 1922 Unwin Poems copyright page, which states these lyrics were published with The Wanderings of Oisin in 1888. That 1888 volume is not on disk. Membership is the Crossways section of the 1895 Unwin Poems, the first book to collect them under that title. An earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemswilliambutl00yeatrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsyeatrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/w-b-yeats_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-21"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 23,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And humming sands, where windy surges wend:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he called loudly to the stars to bend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sea swept on and cried her old cry still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He fled the persecution of her glory",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But naught they heard, for they are always listening,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sought once again the shore, and found a shell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thought, I will my heavy story tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}