{
 "id": "edward-thomas/if-i-were-to-own",
 "title": "If I Were to Own",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 17,
 "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": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If I were to own this countryside",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As far as a man in a day could ride,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the Tyes were mine for giving or letting⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wingle Tye and Margaretting",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tye⁠—and Skreens, Gooshays, and Cockerells,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shellow, Rochetts, Bandish, and Pickerells,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Marlins, Lambkins, and Lillyputs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their copses, ponds, roads, and ruts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fields where plough-horses steam and plovers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fling and whimper, hedges that lovers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love, and orchards, shrubberies, walls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the sun untroubled by north wind falls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And single trees where the thrush sings well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His proverbs untranslatable,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I would give them all to my son",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If he would let me any one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a song, a blackbird’s song, at dawn.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He should have no more, till on my lawn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never a one was left, because I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had shot them to put them into a pie⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His Essex blackbirds, every one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I was left old and alone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then unless I could pay, for rent, a song",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As sweet as a blackbird’s, and as long⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more⁠—he should have the house, not I:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Margaretting or Wingle Tye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or it might be Skreens, Gooshays, or Cockerells,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shellow, Rochetts, Bandish, or Pickerells,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Martins, Lambkins, or Lillyputs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should be his till the cart tracks had no ruts.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}