{
 "id": "edward-thomas/when-first",
 "title": "When First",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 19,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "Poems (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22423"
  ]
 },
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When first I came here I had hope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart at sight of the tall slope",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or grass and yews, as if my feet",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Only by scaling its steps of chalk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would see something no other hill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ever disclosed. And now I walk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down it the last time. Never will",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My heart beat so again at sight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of any hill although as fair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And loftier. For infinite",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The change, late unperceived, this year,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The twelfth, suddenly, shows me plain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hope now⁠—not health, nor cheerfulness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since they can come and go again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As often one brief hour witnesses⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Just hope has gone for ever. Perhaps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I may love other hills yet more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than this: the future and the maps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hide something I was waiting for.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One thing I know, that love with chance",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And use and time and necessity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will grow, and louder the heart’s dance",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At parting than at meeting be.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}