[
  {
    "title": "Evelyn Hope",
    "author": "Robert Browning",
    "lines": [
      "Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!",
      "  Sit and watch by her side an hour.",
      "That is her book-shelf, this her bed;",
      "  She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,",
      "Beginning to die too, in the glass;",
      "  Little has yet been changed, I think:",
      "The shutters are shut, no light may pass",
      "  Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.",
      "",
      "Sixteen years old when she died!",
      "  Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;",
      "It was not her time to love; beside,",
      "  Her life had many a hope and aim,",
      "Duties enough and little cares,",
      "  And now was quiet, now astir,",
      "Till God's hand beckoned unawares,--",
      "  And the sweet white brow is all of her.",
      "",
      "Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?",
      "  What, your soul was pure and true,",
      "The good stars met in your horoscope,",
      "  Made you of spirit, fire and dew--",
      "And just because I was thrice as old",
      "  And our paths in the world diverged so wide,",
      "Each was naught to each, must I be told?",
      "  We were fellow mortals, naught beside?",
      "",
      "No, indeed! for God above",
      "  Is great to grant, as mighty to make,",
      "And creates the love to reward the love:",
      "  I claim you still, for my own love's sake!",
      "Delayed it may be for more lives yet,",
      "  Thro' worlds I shall traverse, not a few:",
      "Much is to learn, much, to forget",
      "  Ere the time be come for taking you.",
      "",
      "But the time will come, at last it will,",
      "  When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)",
      "In the lower earth in the years long still,",
      "  That body and soul so pure and gay?",
      "Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,",
      "  And your mouth of your own geranium's red--",
      "And what would you do with me, in fine,",
      "  In the new life come in the old one's stead.",
      "",
      "I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,",
      "  Given up myself so many times,",
      "Gained me the gains of various men,",
      "  Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;",
      "Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,",
      "  Either I missed or itself missed me:",
      "And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!",
      "  What is the issue? let us see!",
      "",
      "I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!",
      "  My heart seemed full as it could hold;",
      "There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,",
      "  And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.",
      "So hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep:",
      "  See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!",
      "There, that is our secret: go to sleep!",
      "  You will wake, and remember, and understand."
    ],
    "linecount": "56"
  }
]