{
 "id": "t-s-eliot/sweeney-among-the-nightingales",
 "title": "Sweeney Among the Nightingales",
 "poet": "T. S. Eliot",
 "poet_slug": "t-s-eliot",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems-1920",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "Poems (1920)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poems19091925030616mbp"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/t-s-eliot_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1567",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009592742",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1321",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001835100",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100218549",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems19091925030616mbp",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedpoems1900elio",
   "https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20200705",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemswritteninea00elio",
   "https://theworld.com/~raparker/exploring/tseliot/works/poems/eliot-harvard-poems.html"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Letting his arms hang down to laugh,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The zebra stripes along his jaw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swelling to maculate giraffe.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The circles of the stormy moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slide westward toward the River Plate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death and the Raven drift above",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Gloomy Orion and the Dog",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The person in the Spanish cape",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Slips and pulls the table cloth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Overturns a coffee-cup,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Reorganized upon the floor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She yawns and draws a stocking up;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The silent man in mocha brown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sprawls at the windowsill and gapes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The waiter brings in oranges",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The silent vertebrate in brown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rachel née Rabinovitch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She and the lady in the cape",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are suspect, thought to be in league;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Therefore the man with heavy eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Leaves the room and reappears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Outside the window, leaning in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Branches of wisteria",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Circumscribe a golden grin;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The host with someone indistinct",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Converses at the door apart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The nightingales are singing near",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Convent of the Sacred Heart,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And sang within the bloody wood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Agamemnon cried aloud,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And let their liquid droppings fall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}