{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/french-nocturne",
 "title": "French Nocturne",
 "ordinal": "II",
 "subtitle": "(Monchy-le-Preux)",
 "poet": "C. S. Lewis",
 "poet_slug": "c-s-lewis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spirits in Bondage",
 "book_slug": "spirits-in-bondage",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "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-2.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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Long leagues on either hand the trenches spread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all is still; now even this gross line",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drinks in the frosty silences divine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pale, green moon is riding overhead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The jaws of a sacked village, stark and grim;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out on the ridge have swallowed up the sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in one angry streak his blood has run",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To left and right along the horizon dim.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There comes a buzzing plane: and now, it seems",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flies straight into the moon. Lo! where he steers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Across the pallid globe and surely nears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that white land some harbour of dear dreams!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "False mocking fancy! Once I too could dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who now can only see with vulgar eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he’s no nearer to the moon than I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she’s a stone that catches the sun’s beam.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What call have I to dream of anything?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am a wolf. Back to the world again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And speech of fellow-brutes that once were men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our throats can bark for slaughter: cannot sing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}