{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/in-praise-of-solid-people",
 "title": "In Praise of Solid People",
 "ordinal": "XXIV",
 "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": 22,
 "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-24.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": 56,
  "n_stanzas": 14,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Thank God that there are solid folk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who water flowers and roll the lawn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sit and sew and talk and smoke,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And snore all through the summer dawn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who pass untroubled nights and days",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Full-fed and sleepily content,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rejoicing and each other’s praise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Respectable and innocent.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who feel the things that all men feel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And think in well-worn grooves of thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose honest spirits never reel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before man’s mystery, overwrought.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet not unfaithful nor unkind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With work-day virtues surely staid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Theirs is the sane and humble mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dull affections undismayed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O happy people! I have seen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No verse yet written in your praise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, truth to tell, the time has been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I would have scorned your easy ways.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But now thro’ weariness and strife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I learn your worthiness indeed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world is better for such life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As stout suburban people lead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Too often have I sat alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the wet night falls heavily,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fretting winds around me moan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And homeless longing vexes me",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For lore that I shall never know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And visions none can hope to see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till brooding works upon me so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A childish fear steals over me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I look around the empty room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The clock still ticking in its place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all else silent as the tomb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till suddenly, I think, a face",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Grows from the darkness just beside.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I turn, and lo! it fades away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And soon another phantom tide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of shifting dreams begins to play,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And dusky galleys past me sail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Full freighted on a faerie sea;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hear the silken merchants hail",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Across the ringing waves to me",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "—Then suddenly, again, the room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Familiar books about me piled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I alone amid the gloom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By one more mocking dream beguiled.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And still no nearer to the Light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still no further from myself,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alone and lost in clinging night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—(The clock’s still ticking on the shelf).",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then do I envy solid folk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who sit of evenings by the fire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After their work and doze and smoke,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And are not fretted by desire.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}