{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/queen-anns-lace",
 "title": "Queen-Ann’s-Lace",
 "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": 35,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "Sour Grapes (1921)",
  "note": "First located printing; many Sour Grapes poems appeared first in periodicals, and an earlier printing has not been ruled out.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_Grapes_(poetry_collection)"
  ]
 },
 "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": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Her body is not so white as",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "anemony petals nor so smooth⁠—nor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "so remote a thing. It is a field",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "of the wild carrot taking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the field by force; the grass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "does not raise above it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here is no question of whiteness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "white as can be, with a purple mole",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "at the center of each flower.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each flower is a hand’s span",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "of her whiteness. Wherever",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "his hand has lain there is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "a tiny purple blemish. Each part",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "is a blossom under his touch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to which the fibres of her being",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "stem one by one, each to its end,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "until the whole field is a",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "white desire, empty, a single stem,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "a cluster, flower by flower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "a pious wish to whiteness gone over⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "or nothing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}