{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/a-portrait-in-greys",
 "title": "A Portrait in Greys",
 "poet": "William Carlos Williams",
 "poet_slug": "william-carlos-williams",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Al Que Quiere! A Book of Poems",
 "book_slug": "al-que-quiere",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 39,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "Al Que Quiere! A Book of Poems (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51997"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/william-carlos-williams_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31878",
   "https://archive.org/details/temperscarlos00willrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51997",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006060238",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35667",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007676947"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 8
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Will it never be possible",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to separate you from your greyness?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must you be always sinking backward",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "into your grey-brown landscapes⁠—and trees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "always in the distance, always against",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "a grey sky?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must I be always",
    "indent": 6
   },
   {
    "text": "moving counter to you? Is there no place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "where we can be at peace together",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and the motion of our drawing apart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "be altogether taken up?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I see myself",
    "indent": 8
   },
   {
    "text": "standing upon your shoulders touching",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "a grey, broken sky⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "but you, weighted down with me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "yet gripping my ankles⁠—move",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "laboriously on,",
    "indent": 8
   },
   {
    "text": "where it is level and undisturbed by colors.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}