{
 "id": "robert-frost/a-hillside-thaw",
 "title": "A Hillside Thaw",
 "poet": "Robert Frost",
 "poet_slug": "robert-frost",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Hampshire",
 "book_slug": "new-hampshire",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 39,
 "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": 35,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To think to know the country and not know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hillside on the day the sun lets go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ten million silver lizards out of snow!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As often as I’ve seen it done before",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I can’t pretend to tell the way it’s done.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It looks as if some magic of the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the light breaking on them made them run.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But if I thought to stop the wet stampede,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And caught one silver lizard by the tail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And put my foot on one without avail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And threw myself wet-elbowed and wet-kneed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In front of twenty others’ wriggling speed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the confusion of them all aglitter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And birds that joined in the excited fun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By doubling and redoubling song and twitter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have no doubt I’d end by holding none.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It takes the moon for this. The sun’s a wizard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By all I tell; but so’s the moon a witch.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the high west she makes a gentle cast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And suddenly, without a jerk or twitch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She has her spell on every single lizard.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I fancied when I looked at six o’clock",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The swarm still ran and scuttled just as fast.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The moon was waiting for her chill effect.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I looked at nine: the swarm was turned to rock",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In every lifelike posture of the swarm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Transfixed on mountain slopes almost erect.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Across each other and side by side they lay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The spell that so could hold them as they were",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was wrought through trees without a breath of storm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To make a leaf, if there had been one, stir.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was the moon’s: she held them until day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One lizard at the end of every ray.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thought of my attempting such a stay!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}