{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/to-my-laundress",
 "title": "To My Laundress",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 63,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Shapes of Clay (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
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  "longest_line_chars": 48,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Saponacea, wert thou not so fair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d curse thee for thy multitude of sins⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For sending home my clothes all full of pins,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A shirt occasionally that’s a snare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a delusion, got, the Lord knows where,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Lord knows why⁠—a sock whose outs and ins",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "None know, nor where it ends nor where begins,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And fewer cuffs than ought to be my share.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But when I mark thy lilies how they grow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the red roses of thy ripening charms,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I bless the lovelight in thy dark eyes dreaming.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll never pay thee, but I’d gladly go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the magic circle of thine arms,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Supple and fragrant from repeated steaming.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}