{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/spring-strains",
 "title": "Spring Strains",
 "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": 37,
 "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://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": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 6
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "crowded erect with desire against",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the sky⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "tense blue-grey twigs",
    "indent": 5
   },
   {
    "text": "slenderly anchoring them down, drawing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "them in⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "two blue-grey birds chasing",
    "indent": 5
   },
   {
    "text": "a third struggle in circles, angles,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "swift convergings to a point that bursts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "instantly!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Vibrant bowing limbs",
    "indent": 5
   },
   {
    "text": "pull downward, sucking in the sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that bulges from behind, plastering itself",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "against them in packed rifts, rock blue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "and dirty orange!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But⁠—",
    "indent": 6
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "(Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the blinding and red-edged sun-blur⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "creeping energy, concentrated",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "counterforce⁠—welds sky, buds, trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "rivets them in one puckering hold!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sticks through! Pulls the whole",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "locks even the opaque, not yet defined",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "ground in a terrific drag that is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "loosening the very tap-roots!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "at full cry! Now they are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "flung outward and up⁠—disappearing suddenly!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}