{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/invitation",
 "title": "Invitation",
 "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": 40,
 "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": 19,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 32,
  "max_indent": 7
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You who had the sense",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to choose me such a mother,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "you who had the indifference",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to create me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "you who went to some pains",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to leave hands off me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "in the formative stages,⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(I thank you most for that",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "perhaps)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "but you who",
    "indent": 7
   },
   {
    "text": "with an iron head, first,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "fiercest and with strongest love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "brutalized me into strength,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "old dew-lap⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have reached the stage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "where I am teaching myself",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to laugh.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come on,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "take a walk with me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}