{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/complaint",
 "title": "Complaint",
 "poet": "William Carlos Williams",
 "poet_slug": "william-carlos-williams",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems",
 "book_slug": "sour-grapes",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 16,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems (1921)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35667"
  ]
 },
 "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": 22,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 29,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "They call me and I go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is a frozen road",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "past midnight, a dust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "of snow caught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "in the rigid wheeltracks.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The door opens.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I smile, enter and",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "shake off the cold.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here is a great woman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "on her side in the bed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She is sick,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "perhaps vomiting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "perhaps laboring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to give birth to",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "a tenth child. Joy! Joy!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Night is a room",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "darkened for lovers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "through the jalousies the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "has sent one gold needle!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I pick the hair from her eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and watch her misery",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "with compassion.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}