Again I reply to the triple winds running chromatic fifths of derision outside my window: Play louder. You will not succeed. I am bound more to my sentences the more you batter at me to follow you. And the wind, as before, fingers perfectly its derisive music.
Where this text comes from
First published in Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems (1921). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/william-carlos-williams_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (6)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L11.
Cite this poem
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963).
“January.” First published in Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems (1921).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/william-carlos-williams/january/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
More by William Carlos Williams