When he should laugh the wise man knows full well: For he knows what is truly laughable. But wiser is the man who laughs also, Or holds his laughter, when the foolish do.
Where this text comes from
First published in Poems (1917). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/edward-thomas_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (4)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L4.
Cite this poem
Edward Thomas (1878–1917).
“When He Should Laugh.” First published in Poems (1917).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/edward-thomas/when-he-should-laugh/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
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