Complaint
Complaint - fact Summary
Williams the Physician-poet
From the perspective of a practicing doctor, the poem depicts a nocturnal house call: a frozen road, entry into a darkened bedroom, and a woman in acute distress who might be vomiting or delivering her tenth child. The speaker notes clinical details while registering a quiet tenderness—shaking off the cold, brushing hair from her eyes—so professional duty and compassion illuminate a compressed moment that blends hardship with a small, sudden beauty.
Read Complete AnalysesThey call me and I go. It is a frozen road past midnight, a dust of snow caught in the rigid wheeltracks. The door opens. I smile, enter and shake off the cold. Here is a great woman on her side in the bed. She is sick, perhaps vomiting, perhaps laboring to give birth to a tenth child. Joy! Joy! Night is a room darkened for lovers, through the jalousies the sun has sent one golden needle! I pick the hair from her eyes and watch her misery with compassion.
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