{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/death-in-battle",
 "title": "Death in Battle",
 "ordinal": "XL",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "C. S. Lewis",
 "poet_slug": "c-s-lewis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spirits in Bondage",
 "book_slug": "spirits-in-bondage",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 35,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1919,
  "venue": "Spirits in Bondage (1919)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-40.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003",
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101865124"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 66,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Open the gates for me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Open the gates of the peaceful castle, rosy in the West,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the sweet dim Isle of Apples over the wide sea’s breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Open the gates for me!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sorely pressed have I been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And driven and hurt beyond bearing this summer day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the heat and the pain together suddenly fall away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All’s cool and green.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But a moment agone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among men cursing in fight and toiling, blinded I fought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the labour passed on a sudden even as a passing thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now⁠—alone!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, to be ever alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In flowery valleys among the mountains and silent wastes untrod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the dewy upland places, in the garden of God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This would atone!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I shall not see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The brutal, crowded faces around me, that in their toil have grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the faces of devils⁠—yea, even as my own⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I find thee,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O Country of Dreams!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond the tide of the ocean, hidden and sunk away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the sound of battles, near to the end of day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Full of dim woods and streams.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}