{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/portrait-of-the-author",
 "title": "Portrait of the Author",
 "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": 51,
 "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": 58,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The birches are mad with green points",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the wood’s edge is burning with their green,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "burning, seething⁠—No, no, no.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The birches are opening their leaves one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "by one. Their delicate leaves unfold cold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and separate, one by one. Slender tassels",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "hang swaying from the delicate branch tips⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, I cannot say it. There is no word.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Black is split at once into flowers. In",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "every bog and ditch, flares of",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "small fire, white flowers!⁠—Agh,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the birches are mad, mad with their green.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world is gone, torn into shreds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "with this blessing. What have I left undone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that I should have undertaken",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O my brother, you redfaced, living man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "ignorant, stupid whose feet are upon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "this same dirt that I touch⁠—and eat.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We are alone in this terror, alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "face to face on this road, you and I,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "wrapped by this flame!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let the polished plows stay idle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "their gloss already on the black soil.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that face of yours⁠—!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Answer me. I will clutch you. I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "will hug you, grip you. I will poke my face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "into your face and force you to see me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take me in your arms, tell me the commonest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "thing that is in your mind to say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "say anything. I will understand you⁠—!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is the madness of the birch leaves opening",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "cold, one by one.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My rooms will receive me. But my rooms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "are no longer sweet spaces where comfort",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "is ready to wait on me with its crumbs.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A darkness has brushed them. The mass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "of yellow tulips in the bowl is shrunken.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every familiar object is changed and dwarfed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am shaken, broken against a might",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that splits comfort, blows apart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "my careful partitions, crushes my house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and leaves me⁠—with shrinking heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and startled, empty eyes⁠—peering out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "into a cold world.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In the spring I would drink! In the spring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I would be drunk and lie forgetting all things.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your face! Give me your face, Yang Kue Fei!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "your hands, your lips to drink!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give me your wrists to drink⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I drag you, I am drowned in you, you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "overwhelm me! Drink!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save me! The shad bush is in the edge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "of the clearing. The yards in a fury",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "of lilac blossoms are driving me mad with terror.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drink and lie forgetting the world.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And coldly the birch leaves are opening one by one.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Coldly I observe them and wait for the end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And it ends.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}