{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/the-death-of-franco-of-cologne-his-prophecy-of-beethoven",
 "title": "The Death of Franco of Cologne: His Prophecy of Beethoven",
 "poet": "William Carlos Williams",
 "poet_slug": "william-carlos-williams",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Tempers",
 "book_slug": "the-tempers",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1913,
  "venue": "The Tempers (1913)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/temperscarlos00willrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31878"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/william-carlos-williams_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "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": 53,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
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  "longest_line_chars": 65,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "It is useless, good woman, useless: the spark fails me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God! yet when the might of it all assails me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It seems impossible that I cannot do it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet I cannot. They were right, and they all knew it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Years ago, but I⁠—never! I have persisted",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blindly (they say) and now I am old. I have resisted",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Everything, but now, now the strife’s ended.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fire’s out; the old cloak has been mended",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the last time, the soul peers through its tatters.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put a light by and leave me; nothing more matters",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now; I am done; I am at last well broken!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, by God, I’ll still leave them a token",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That they’ll swear it was no dead man writ it;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A morsel that they’ll mark well the day they bit it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That there’ll be sand between their gross teeth to crunch yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When goodman Gabriel blows his concluding trumpet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leave me!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now, little black eyes, come you out here!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah, you’ve given me a lively, lasting bout, year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After year to win you round me darlings!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Precious children, little gambollers! “farlings”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They might have called you once, “nearlings”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I call you now, I, first of all the yearlings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon this plain, for I it was that tore you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of chaos! It was I bore you!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah, you little children that go playing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the five-barred gate, and will still be straying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spite of all that I have ever told you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of counterpoint and cadence which does not hold you⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more than chains will for this or that strange reason,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But you’re always at some new loving treason",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be away from me, laughing, mocking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Witlessly, perhaps, but for all that forever knocking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At this stanchion door of your poor father’s heart till⁠—oh, well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At least you’ve shown that you can grow well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "However much you evade me faster, faster.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, black eyes, some day you’ll get a master,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For he will come! He shall, he must come!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when he finishes and the burning dust from",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His wheels settles⁠—what shall men see then?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, you, you, my own lovely children!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aye, all of you, thus with hands together",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Playing on the hill or there in a tether,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or running free, but all mine! Aye, my very namesakes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall be his proper fame’s stakes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he shall lead you!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he shall meed you!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he shall build you gold palaces!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he shall wine you from clear chalices!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I have seen it! I have seen it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Written where the world-clouds screen it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From other eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the bronze gates of paradise!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}