{
 "id": "edward-thomas/the-chalk-pit",
 "title": "The Chalk-Pit",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Last Poems",
 "book_slug": "last-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 56,
 "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": 58,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "“Is this the road that climbs above and bends",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Round what was once a chalk-pit: now it is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By accident an amphitheatre.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some ash-trees standing ankle-deep in brier",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bramble act the parts, and neither speak",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor stir.” “But see: they have fallen, every one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And brier and bramble have grown over them.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“That is the place. As usual no one is here.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hardly can I imagine the drop of the axe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the smack that is like an echo, sounding here.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I do not understand.” “Why, what I mean is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I have seen the place two or three times",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At most, and that its emptiness and silence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stillness haunt me, as if just before",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was not empty, silent, still, but full",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of life of some kind, perhaps tragical.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has anything unusual happened here?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Not that I know of. It is called the Dell.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They have not dug chalk here for a century.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That was the ash-trees’ age. But I will ask.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“No. Do not. I prefer to make a tale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or better leave it like the end of a play,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Actors and audience and lights all gone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For so it looks now. In my memory",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Again and again I see it, strangely dark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And vacant of a life but just withdrawn.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We have not seen the woodman with the axe.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some ghost has left it now as we two came.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“And yet you doubted if this were the road?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Well, sometimes I have thought of it and failed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To place it. No. And I am not quite sure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even now, this is it. For another place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Real or painted, may have combined with it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or I myself a long way back in time⁠ ⁠…”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Why, as to that, I used to meet a man⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I had forgotten⁠—searching for birds’ nests",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Along the road and in the chalk-pit too.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wren’s hole was an eye that looked at him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For recognition. Every nest he knew.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He got a stiff neck, by looking this side or that,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spring after spring, he told me, with his laugh⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A sort of laugh. He was a visitor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A man of forty⁠—smoked and strolled about.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At orts and crosses Pleasure and Pain had played",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On his brown features;⁠—I think both had lost;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mild and yet wild too. You may know the kind.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And once or twice a woman shared his walks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A girl of twenty with a brown boy’s face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hair brown as a thrush or as a nut,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thick eyebrows, glinting eyes⁠—” “You have said enough.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A pair⁠—free thought, free love⁠—I know the breed:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I shall not mix my fancies up with them.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“You please yourself. I should prefer the truth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or nothing. Here, in fact, is nothing at all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except a silent place that once rang loud,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And trees and us⁠—imperfect friends, we men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And trees since time began; and nevertheless",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between us still we breed a mystery.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}