{
 "id": "edward-thomas/the-mountain-chapel",
 "title": "The Mountain Chapel",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Last Poems",
 "book_slug": "last-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 45,
 "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": 42,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Chapel and gravestones, old and few,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are shrouded by a mountain fold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From sound and view",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of life. The loss of the brook’s voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Falls like a shadow. All they hear is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The eternal noise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of wind whistling in grass more shrill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than aught as human as a sword,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And saying still:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“ ’Tis but a moment since man’s birth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in another moment more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man lies in earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For ever; but I am the same",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now, and shall be, even as I was",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before he came;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till there is nothing I shall be.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet there the sun shines after noon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So cheerfully",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The place almost seems peopled, nor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lacks cottage chimney, cottage hearth:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is not more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In size than is a cottage, less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than any other empty home",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In homeliness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It has a garden of wild flowers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And finest grass and gravestones warm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In sunshine hours",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The year through. Men behind the glass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stand once a week, singing, and drown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The whistling grass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their ponies munch. And yet somewhere,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Near or far off, there’s a man could",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be happy here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or one of the gods perhaps, were they",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not of inhuman stature dire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As poets say",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who have not seen them clearly; if",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At sound of any wind of the world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In grass-blades stiff",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They would not startle and shudder cold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under the sun. When gods were young",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This wind was old.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}