{
 "id": "edward-thomas/may-23",
 "title": "May 23",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 36,
 "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": 46,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There never was a finer day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never will be while May is May⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The third, and not the last of its kind;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But though fair and clear the two behind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seemed pursued by tempests overpast;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the morrow with fear that it could not last",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was spoiled. To-day ere the stones were warm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Five minutes of thunderstorm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dashed it with rain, as if to secure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By one tear, its beauty the luck to endure.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "At mid-day then along the lane",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old Jack Noman appeared again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Jaunty and old, crooked and tall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stopped and grinned at me over the wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a cowslip bunch in his button-hole",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And one in his cap. Who could say if his roll",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came from flints in the road, the weather, or ale?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He was welcome as the nightingale.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not an hour of the sun had been wasted on Jack.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I’ve got my Indian complexion back”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Said he. He was tanned like a harvester,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like his short clay pipe, like the leaf and burr",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That clung to his coat from last night’s bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the ploughland crumbling red.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fairer flowers were none on the earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than his cowslips wet with the dew of their birth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or fresher leaves than the cress in his basket.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Where did they come from, Jack?” “Don’t ask it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you’ll be told no lies.” “Very well:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then I can’t buy.” “I don’t want to sell.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take them and these flowers, too, free.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps you have something to give me?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wait till next time. The better the day⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Lord couldn’t make a better, I say;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If he could, he never has done.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So off went Jack with his roll-walk-run,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaving his cresses from Oakshott rill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his cowslips from Wheatham hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twas the first day that the midges bit;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But though they bit me, I was glad of it:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the dust in my face, too, I was glad.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spring could do nothing to make me sad.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bluebells hid all the ruts in the copse.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The elm seeds lay in the road like hops,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That fine day, May the twenty-third,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The day Jack Noman disappeared.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}