{
 "id": "mina-loy/babies-in-hospital",
 "title": "Babies in Hospital",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Mina Loy",
 "poet_slug": "mina-loy",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1916,
  "venue": "Rogue, vol. II [i.e. III] no. 2 (November 1916), p. 6",
  "note": "Read on the page image of the Beinecke copy: the masthead reads “NOVEMBER · ROGUE · Allen Norton, Editor · Volume II [i.e. III] · Number 2”, the contents leaf lists “Babies in Hospital (Verse) … Mina Loy … Page 6”, and the poem stands on page 6 over the byline “By Mina Loy” with its three numbered parts. The year is the volume’s: the October number of the same volume carries “Copyright 1916 by Rogue, Inc.” in its imprint line. Yale’s catalogue records that this third volume is misnumbered vol. 2 on its covers.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17390662"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/mina-loy_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uva.x002129491?urlappend=%3Bseq=396",
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17374476",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_others-a-magazine-of-the-new-verse_1916-07_3_1/page/27",
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17390662",
   "https://archive.org/details/othersanantholo01kreygoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924022030351",
   "https://archive.org/details/littlereview07mcke/page/n199",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_others-a-magazine-of-the-new-verse_1917-04_3_6",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_dial_1921-06_70/page/672",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_dial_1921-08_71/page/n15",
   "https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106010168349",
   "https://archive.org/details/contact-collection-of-contemporary-writers/page/137",
   "https://personal.colby.edu/~isadoff/map/loy.doc",
   "https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/digital_objects/211477",
   "https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/transatlantic/1/"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 64,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 3,
  "longest_line_chars": 30,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    4,
    5
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Small Elena",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of shrunken limbs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ample sex",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Having filched",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The atrophied",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Woman-smile of your mother",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scatter it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the eating unseen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tuberculous",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Inaudible hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the counter-pane",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It might have been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Impossible",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fingers should be so long",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being so tiny",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But Nature",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Needing no microscope",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In her laboratory",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Found it just as easy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Marshalling imperceptible",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hosts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bone of your arm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among overlapping of lint",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Attaining a dignity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unworthy of your years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two and a half!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hail to you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bad little boy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In bound beauty",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of only a broken leg",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thank you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For throwing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your bricks on the floor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the third time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the smack",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You gave me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the thermometer",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Delightfully male",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Already gallant",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You smooth the mackintosh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Elena to sit on beside you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her fragility",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being irresistibly for you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are very wise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Precocious coquette",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who never learnt to talk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To look at him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your semi-imbecile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eyes shut",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is not given to each of us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be desired.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Tend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do not touch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Apparent flowers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of festering secret",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the fly-by-nights",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such little things",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I cannot be your mother",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There are already",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So many ignorances",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am not guilty of.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}