{
 "id": "robert-frost/the-need-of-being-versed-in-country-things",
 "title": "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things",
 "poet": "Robert Frost",
 "poet_slug": "robert-frost",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Hampshire",
 "book_slug": "new-hampshire",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 44,
 "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": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The house had gone to bring again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the midnight sky a sunset glow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a pistil after the petals go.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The barn opposed across the way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That would have joined the house in flame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had it been the will of the wind, was left",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bear forsaken the place’s name.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No more it opened with all one end",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For teams that came by the stony road",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And brush the mow with the summer load.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The birds that came to it through the air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At broken windows flew out and in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From too much dwelling on what has been.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the aged elm, though touched with fire;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the fence post carried a strand of wire.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For them there was really nothing sad.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One had to be versed in country things",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not to believe the phoebes wept.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}