[
  {
    "title": "Fears and Scruples",
    "author": "Robert Browning",
    "lines": [
      "Here's my case. Of old I used to love him.",
      "  This same unseen friend, before I knew:",
      "Dream there was none like him, none above him,--",
      "  Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.",
      "",
      "Loved I not his letters full of beauty?",
      "  Not his actions famous far and wide?",
      "Absent, he would know I vowed him duty,",
      "  Present, he would find me at his side.",
      "",
      "Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,",
      "  Only knew of actions by hearsay:",
      "He himself was busied with my betters;",
      "  What of that? My turn must come some day.",
      "",
      "\"Some day\" proving--no day! Here's the puzzle.",
      "  Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?",
      "He's so busied! If I could but muzzle",
      "  People's foolish mouths that give me pain!",
      "",
      "\"Letters?\" (hear them!) \"You a judge of writing?",
      "  Ask the experts!--How they shake the head",
      "O'er these characters, your friend's inditing--",
      "  Call them forgery from A to Z!",
      "",
      "\"Actions? Where's your certain proof\" (they bother)",
      "  \"He, of all you find so great and good,",
      "He, he only, claims this, that, the other",
      "  Action--claimed by men, a multitude?\"",
      "",
      "I can simply wish I might refute you,",
      "  Wish my friend would,--by a word, a wink,--",
      "Bid me stop that foolish mouth,--you brute you!",
      "  He keeps absent,--why, I cannot think.",
      "",
      "Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me.",
      "  One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost,",
      "No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me",
      "  Thanks for truth--tho' falsehood, gained--tho' lost.",
      "",
      "All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier,",
      "  For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill",
      "Thro' and thro' me as I thought, \"The gladlier",
      "  Lives my friend because I love him still!\"",
      "",
      "Ah, but there's a menace some one utters!",
      "  \"What and if your friend at home play tricks?",
      "Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters?",
      "  Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks?",
      "",
      "'What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy?",
      "  Lay on you the blame that bricks--conceal?",
      "Say '_At least I saw who did not see me,",
      "  Does see now, and presently shall feel_'?\"",
      "",
      "\"Why, that makes your friend a monster!\" say you;",
      "  \"Had his house no window? At first nod,",
      "Would you not have hailed him?\" Hush, I pray you!",
      "  What if this friend happen to be--God?"
    ],
    "linecount": "48"
  }
]