{
 "id": "maria-lowell/the-sick-room",
 "title": "The Sick-Room",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Maria Lowell",
 "poet_slug": "maria-lowell",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Maria Lowell",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 12,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1907,
  "venue": "The Poems of Maria Lowell (1907)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofmarialowe00lowerich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/maria-lowell_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/uva-lib:439721",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofmarialowe00lowerich"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 46,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A spirit is treading the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As wind treads the vibrating string;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I know thy feet so beautiful,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy punctual feet, O Spring!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They slide from far-off mountains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As slides the untouched snow;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They move over deepening meadows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As vague cloud-shadows blow.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou wilt not enter the chamber,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The door stands open in vain;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art pluming the wands of cherry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To lattice the window pane.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou flushest the sunken orchard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the lift of thy rosy wing;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The peach will not part with her sunrise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though great noon-bells should ring.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O life, and light, and gladness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tumultuous everywhere!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O pain and benumbing sadness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That brood in the heavy air!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here the fire alone is busy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wastes, like the fever’s heat,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The wood that enshrined past summers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Past summers as bounteous as fleet.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The beautiful hanging gardens",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That rocked in the morning wind,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And sheltered a dream of Faery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And life so timid and kind,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The shady choir of the bobolink,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The race-course of squirrels gay⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They are changed into trembling smoke-wreaths,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a heap of ashes gray.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}