The world begins again! Not wholly insufflated the blackbirds in the rain upon the dead topbranches of the living tree, stuck fast to the low clouds, notate the dawn. Their shrill cries sound announcing appetite and drop among the bending roses and the dripping grass.
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).
“The Birds.” First published in Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems (1921).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/william-carlos-williams/the-birds/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
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