{
 "id": "edward-thomas/the-lofty-sky",
 "title": "The Lofty Sky",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Last Poems",
 "book_slug": "last-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 29,
 "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": 34,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 33,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To-day I want the sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tops of the high hills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Above the last man’s house,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His hedges, and his cows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, if I will, I look",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down even on sheep and rook,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And of all things that move",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See buzzards only above:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Past all trees, past furze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thorn, where nought deters",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The desire of the eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For sky, nothing but sky.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I sicken of the woods",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the multitudes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of hedge-trees. They are no more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than weeds upon this floor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the river of air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leagues deep, leagues wide, where",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am like a fish that lives",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In weeds and mud and gives",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What’s above him no thought.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I might be a tench for aught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I can do to-day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down on the wealden clay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even the tench has days",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When he floats up and plays",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among the lily leaves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sees the sky, or grieves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not if he nothing sees:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While I, I know that trees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under that lofty sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are weeds, fields mud, and I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would arise and go far",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To where the lilies are.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}