{
 "id": "walt-whitman/gods",
 "title": "Gods",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Walt Whitman",
 "poet_slug": "walt-whitman",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Leaves of Grass",
 "book_slug": "leaves-of-grass",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 116,
 "container": "By the Roadside",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1871,
  "venue": "Leaves of Grass (Washington, 1871)",
  "note": "Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the 1871 scan. The corpus text follows the 1891–92 arrangement, by which the poem had been revised. First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/leavesofgrawhit"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass",
  "file": "by-the-roadside.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322",
   "https://archive.org/details/leavesgrass03whitgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Lover divine and perfect Comrade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be thou my God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou, thou, the Ideal Man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Complete in body and dilate in spirit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be thou my God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O Death, (for Life has served its turn,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be thou my God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(To break the stagnant tie⁠—thee, thee to free, O soul,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be thou my God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All great ideas, the races’ aspirations,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be ye my Gods.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or Time and Space,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or some fair shape I viewing, worship,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be ye my Gods.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}