{
 "id": "edward-thomas/home",
 "title": "“Home”",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 56,
 "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": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Fair was the morning, fair our tempers, and",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We had seen nothing fairer than that land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though strange, and the untrodden snow that made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wild of the tame, casting out all that was",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not wild and rustic and old; and we were glad.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fair, too, was afternoon, and first to pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were we that league of snow, next the north wind",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There was nothing to return for, except need,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet we sang nor ever stopped for speed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As we did often with the start behind.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Faster still strode we when we came in sight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the cold roofs where we must spend the night.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Happy we had not been there, nor could be.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though we had tasted sleep and food and fellowship",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Together long.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“How quick” to someone’s lip",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "The words came, “will the beaten horse run home.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The word “home” raised a smile in us all three,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And one repeated it, smiling just so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all knew what he meant and none would say.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between three counties far apart that lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We were divided and looked strangely each",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the other, and we knew we were not friends",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But fellows in a union that ends",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the necessity for it, as it ought.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Never a word was spoken, not a thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was thought, of what the look meant with the word",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Home” as we walked and watched the sunset blurred.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then to me the word, only the word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Homesick,” as it were playfully occurred:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If I should ever more admit",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Than the mere word I could not endure it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a day longer: this captivity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must somehow come to an end, else I should be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another man, as often now I seem,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or this life be only an evil dream.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}