{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/con-brio",
 "title": "Con Brio",
 "poet": "William Carlos Williams",
 "poet_slug": "william-carlos-williams",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Tempers",
 "book_slug": "the-tempers",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 13,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1913,
  "venue": "The Tempers (1913)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/temperscarlos00willrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31878"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "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": 19,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 64,
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 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Miserly, is the best description of that poor fool",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who holds Lancelot to have been a morose fellow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dolefully brooding over the events which had naturally to follow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The high time of his deed with Guinevere.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He has a sick historical sight, if I judge rightly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To believe any such thing as that ever occurred.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, by the god of blood, what else is it that has deterred",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Us all from an out and out defiance of fear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But this same perdamnable miserliness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which cries about our necks how we shall have less and less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than we have now if we spend too wantonly?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Bah, this sort of slither is below contempt!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In the same vein we should have apple trees exempt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From bearing anything but pink blossoms all the year,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fixed permanent lest their bellies wax unseemly, and the dear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Innocent days of them be wasted quite.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How can we have less? Have we not the deed?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lancelot thought little, spent his gold and rode to fight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mounted, if God was willing, on a good steed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}