{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/sub-terra",
 "title": "Sub Terra",
 "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": 1,
 "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": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 34,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Where shall I find you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "you my grotesque fellows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that I seek everywhere",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to make up my band?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "None, not one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "with the earthy tastes I require;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the burrowing pride that rises",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "subtly as on a bush in May.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where are you this day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "you my seven year locusts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "with cased wings?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah my beauties how I long⁠—!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That harvest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that shall be your advent⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "thrusting up through the grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "up under the weeds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "answering me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that shall be satisfying!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The light shall leap and snap",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that day as with a million lashes!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, I have you; yes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "you are about me in a sense:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "playing under the blue pools",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that are my windows⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "but they shut you out still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "there in the half light.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the simple truth is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "that though I see you clear enough",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "you are not there!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It is not that⁠—it is you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "you I want!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "—God, if I could fathom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the guts of shadows!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You to come with me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "poking into negro houses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "with their gloom and smell!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In among children",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "leaping around a dead dog!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mimicking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "onto the lawns of the rich!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to go with me a-tip-toe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "head down under heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "nostrils lipping the wind!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}