{
 "id": "edward-thomas/as-the-teams-head-brass",
 "title": "As the Team’s Head-Brass",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 9,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "Poems (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22423"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edward-thomas_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22423",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22732",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Collected_Poems/LMsEAQAAIAAJ",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Two_Poems/3ycPAAAAQAAJ"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 37,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lovers disappeared into the wood.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That strewed an angle of the fallow, and",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of charlock. Every time the horses turned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the handles to say or ask a word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About the weather, next about the war.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once more.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The blizzard felled the elm whose crest",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "I sat in, by a woodpecker’s round hole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ploughman said. “When will they take it away?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“When the war’s over.” So the talk began⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One minute and an interval of ten,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A minute more and the same interval.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Have you been out?” “No.” “And don’t want to, perhaps?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“If I could only come back again, I should.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I could spare an arm. I shouldn’t want to lose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I should want nothing more.⁠ ⁠… Have many gone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From here?” “Yes.” “Many lost?” “Yes: good few.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only two teams work on the farm this year.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One of my mates is dead. The second day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In France they killed him. It was back in March,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“And I should not have sat here. Everything",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would have been different. For it would have been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another world.” “Ay, and a better, though",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If we could see all all might seem good.” Then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lovers came out of the wood again:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The horses started and for the last time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I watched the clods crumble and topple over",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}