[
  {
    "title": "Love Among the Ruins",
    "author": "Robert Browning",
    "lines": [
      "Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles",
      "    Miles and miles",
      "On the solitary pastures where our sheep",
      "    Half-asleep",
      "Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop",
      "    As they crop--",
      "Was the site once of a city great and gay,",
      "    (So they say)",
      "Of our country's very capital, its prince",
      "    Ages since",
      "Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far",
      "    Peace or war.",
      "",
      "Now,--the country does not even boast a tree,",
      "    As you see,",
      "To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills",
      "   From the hills",
      "Intersect and give a name to (else they run",
      "    Into one),",
      "Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires",
      "    Up like fires",
      "O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall",
      "    Bounding all,",
      "Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,",
      "    Twelve abreast.",
      "",
      "And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass",
      "    Never was!",
      "Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads",
      "    And embeds",
      "Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,",
      "    Stock or stone--",
      "Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe",
      "    Long ago;",
      "Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame",
      "    Struck them tame;",
      "And that glory and that shame alike, the gold",
      "    Bought and sold.",
      "",
      "Now,--the single little turret that remains",
      "    On the plains,",
      "By the caper overrooted, by the gourd",
      "    Overscored,",
      "While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks",
      "    Thro' the chinks--",
      "Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time",
      "    Sprang sublime,",
      "And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced",
      "    As they raced,",
      "And the monarch and his minions and his dames",
      "    Viewed the games.",
      "",
      "And I know--while thus the quiet-coloured eve",
      "    Smiles to leave",
      "To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece",
      "    In such peace,",
      "And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray",
      "    Melt away--",
      "That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair",
      "    Waits me there",
      "In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul",
      "    For the goal,",
      "When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb",
      "    Till I come,",
      "",
      "But he looked upon the city, every side,",
      "    Far and wide,",
      "All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'",
      "    Colonnades,",
      "All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then,",
      "    All the men!",
      "When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,",
      "    Either hand",
      "On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace",
      "    Of my face,",
      "Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech",
      "    Each on each.",
      "",
      "In one year they sent a million fighters forth",
      "    South and North,",
      "And they built their gods a brazen pillar high",
      "    As the sky,",
      "Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--",
      "    Gold, of course.",
      "Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!",
      "    Earth's returns",
      "For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin!",
      "    Shut them in,",
      "With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!",
      "    Love is best."
    ],
    "linecount": "84"
  }
]