{
 "id": "robert-frost/an-empty-threat",
 "title": "An Empty Threat",
 "poet": "Robert Frost",
 "poet_slug": "robert-frost",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Hampshire",
 "book_slug": "new-hampshire",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 12,
 "container": "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": 57,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I stay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But it isn’t as if",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There wasn’t always Hudson’s Bay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the fur trade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A small skiff",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a paddle blade.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I can just see my tent pegged,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And me on the floor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crosslegged,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a trapper looking in at the door",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With furs to sell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "His name’s Joe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alias John,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And between what he doesn’t know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And won’t tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About where Henry Hudson’s gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I can’t say he’s much help;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But we get on.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The seal yelp",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On an ice cake.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s not men by some mistake?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s not a soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a wind-break",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between me and the North Pole⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Except always John-Joe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My French Indian Eskimo,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he’s off setting traps,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In one himself perhaps.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Give a head shake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over so much bay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thrown away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In snow and mist",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That doesn’t exist,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was going to say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For God, man or beast’s sake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet does perhaps for all three.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Don’t ask Joe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What it is to him.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s sometimes dim",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What it is to me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unless it be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the old captain’s dark fate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who failed to find or force a strait",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In its two-thousand-mile coast;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his crew left him where he failed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nothing came of all he sailed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It’s to say, “You and I”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To such a ghost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“You and I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Off here",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the dead race of the Great Auk!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, “Better defeat almost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If seen clear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than life’s victories of doubt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That need endless talk talk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To make them out.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}