{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/on-woman",
 "title": "On Woman",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Wild Swans at Coole",
 "book_slug": "the-wild-swans-at-coole",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 5,
 "container": "The Wild Swans at Coole",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "The Wild Swans at Coole (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/wildswansatcoole00yeatrich"
  ]
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  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-21"
 },
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  [
   {
    "text": "May God be praised for woman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That gives up all her mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A man may find in no man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A friendship of her kind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That covers all he has brought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As with her flesh and bone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor quarrels with a thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because it is not her own.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though pedantry denies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s plain the Bible means",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Solomon grew wise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While talking with his queens.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet never could, although",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They say he counted grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Count all the praises due",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Sheba was his lass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When she the iron wrought, or",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When from the smithy fire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It shuddered in the water:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Harshness of their desire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That made them stretch and yawn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pleasure that comes with sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shudder that made them one.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What else He give or keep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God grant me⁠—no, not here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I am not so bold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hope a thing so dear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now I am growing old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But when if the tale’s true",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Pestle of the moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That pounds up all anew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brings me to birth again⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To find what once I had",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And know what once I have known,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until I am driven mad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sleep driven from my bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By tenderness and care,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pity, an aching head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gnashing of teeth, despair;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all because of some one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perverse creature of chance,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And live like Solomon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Sheba led a dance.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}