{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/danse-russe",
 "title": "Danse Russe",
 "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": 25,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "Al Que Quiere! (1917)",
  "note": "An earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/danse-russe",
   "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Que_Quiere!"
  ]
 },
 "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": 19,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 34,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If I when my wife is sleeping",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and the baby and Kathleen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "are sleeping",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and the sun is a flame-white disc",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "in silken mists",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "above shining trees,⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "if I in my north room",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "danse naked, grotesquely",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "before my mirror",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "waving my shirt round my head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and singing softly to myself:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I am lonely, lonely.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was born to be lonely.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am best so!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If I admire my arms, my face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "my shoulders, flanks, buttocks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "against the yellow drawn shades,⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "who shall say I am not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the happy genius of my household?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}