{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/irish-nocturne",
 "title": "Irish Nocturne",
 "ordinal": "V",
 "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": 5,
 "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-5.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": 29,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 59,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Now the grey mist comes creeping up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the waste ocean’s weedy strand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fills the valley, as a cup",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is filled of evil drink in a wizard’s hand;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the trees fade out of sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like dreary ghosts unhealthily",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the damp, pale night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till you almost think that a clearer eye could see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some shape come up of a demon seeking apart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His meat, as Grendel sought in Harte",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thanes that at by the wintry log⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grendel or the shadowy mass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Balor, or the man with the face of clay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The grey, grey walker who used to pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the rock-arch nightly to his prey.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But here at the dumb, slow stream where the willows hang,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With never a wind to blow the mists apart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bitter and bitter it is for thee, O my heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looking upon this land, where poets sang,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus with the dreary shroud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unwholesome, over it spread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And knowing the fog and the cloud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In her people’s heart and head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even as it lies for ever upon her coasts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making them dim and dreamy lest her sons should ever arise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And remember all their boasts;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I know that the colourless skies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the blurred horizons breed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lonely desire and many words and brooding and never a deed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}