{
 "id": "robert-frost/a-brook-in-the-city",
 "title": "A Brook in the City",
 "poet": "Robert Frost",
 "poet_slug": "robert-frost",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Hampshire",
 "book_slug": "new-hampshire",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 31,
 "container": "Grace Notes",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1923,
  "venue": "New Hampshire (1923)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/newhampshirepoem00fros_0",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58611",
   "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7008086"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-frost_new-hampshire",
  "file": "new-hampshire.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58611",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000433611"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The farm house lingers, though averse to square",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the new city street it has to wear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A number in. But what about the brook",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That held the house as in an elbow-crook?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And impulse, having dipped a finger length",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A flower to try its currents where they crossed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The meadow grass could be cemented down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From growing under pavements of a town;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is water wood to serve a brook the same?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How else dispose of an immortal force",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No longer needed? Staunch it at its source",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In fetid darkness still to live and run⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all for nothing it had ever done",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except forget to go in fear perhaps.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No one would know except for ancient maps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That such a brook ran water. But I wonder",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If from its being kept forever under",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thoughts may not have risen that so keep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This new-built city from both work and sleep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}