{
 "id": "edward-thomas/sedge-warblers",
 "title": "Sedge-Warblers",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Last Poems",
 "book_slug": "last-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 12,
 "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": 29,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "This beauty made me dream there was a time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Long past and irrecoverable, a clime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where any brook so radiant racing clear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through buttercup and kingcup bright as brass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But gentle, nourishing the meadow grass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That leans and scurries in the wind, would bear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another beauty, divine and feminine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Child to the sun, a nymph whose soul unstained",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could love all day, and never hate or tire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A lover of mortal or immortal kin.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And yet, rid of this dream, ere I had drained",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its poison, quieted was my desire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So that I only looked into the water,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clearer than any goddess or man’s daughter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hearkened while it combed the dark green hair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And shook the millions of the blossoms white",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of water-crowfoot, and curdled to one sheet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The flowers fallen from the chestnuts in the park",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far off. And sedge-warblers, clinging so light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To willow twigs, sang longer than the lark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quick, shrill, or grating, a song to match the heat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the strong sun, nor less the water’s cool,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gushing through narrows, swirling in the pool.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their song that lacks all words, all melody,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All sweetness almost, was dearer then to me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than sweetest voice that sings in tune sweet words.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This was the best of May⁠—the small brown birds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wisely reiterating endlessly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What no man learnt yet, in or out of school.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}