{
 "id": "edward-thomas/old-man",
 "title": "Old Man",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Last Poems",
 "book_slug": "last-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 5,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1918,
  "venue": "Last Poems (1918)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22732"
  ]
 },
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Old Man, or Lad’s-love⁠—in the name there’s nothing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To one that knows not Lad’s-love, or Old Man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Growing with rosemary and lavender.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even to one that knows it well, the names",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At least, what that is clings not to the names",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In spite of time. And yet I like the names.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The herb itself I like not, but for certain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I love it, as some day the child will love it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who plucks a feather from the door-side bush",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whenever she goes in or out of the house.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Often she waits there, snipping the tips and shrivelling",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shreds at last on to the path, perhaps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thinking, perhaps of nothing, till she sniffs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her fingers and runs off. The bush is still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But half as tall as she, though it is as old;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So well she clips it. Not a word she says;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I can only wonder how much hereafter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She will remember, with that bitter scent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of garden rows, and ancient damson-trees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A low thick bush beside the door, and me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forbidding her to pick.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As for myself,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Where first I met the bitter scent is lost.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sniff them and think and sniff again and try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once more to think what it is I am remembering,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With no meaning, than this bitter one.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For what I should, yet never can, remember:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Lad’s-love, or Old Man, no child beside,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}