{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/the-roads",
 "title": "The Roads",
 "ordinal": "XXXIV",
 "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": 30,
 "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": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-34.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": 15,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 78,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I stand on the windy uplands among the hills of Down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With all the world spread out beneath, meadow and sea and town,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ploughlands on the far-off hills that glow with friendly brown.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And ever across the rolling land to the far horizon line,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the blue hills border the misty west, I see the white roads twine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rare roads and the fair roads that call this heart of mine.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I see them dip in the valleys and vanish and rise and bend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From shadowy dell to windswept fell, and still to the West they wend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And over the cold blue ridge at last to the great world’s uttermost end.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And the call of the roads is upon me, a desire in my spirit has grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To wander forth in the highways, ’twixt earth and sky alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And seek for the lands no foot has trod and the seas no sail had known:",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "—For the lands to the west of the evening and east of the morning’s birth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the gods unseen in their valleys green are glad at the ends of the earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fear no morrow to bring them sorrow, nor night to quench their mirth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}