Complaint

They 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.

--William Carlos Williams

Com*plaint" (?), n. [F. complainte. See Complain.]

1.

Expression of grief, regret, pain, censure, or resentment; lamentation; murmuring; accusation; fault-finding.

I poured out my complaint before him. Ps. cxlii. 2.

Grievous complaints of you. Shak.

2.

Cause or subject of complaint or murmuring.

The poverty of the clergy in England hath been the complaint of all who wish well to the church. Swift.

3.

An ailment or disease of the body.

One in a complaint of his bowels. Arbuthnot.

4. Law

A formal allegation or charge against a party made or presented to the appropriate court or officer, as for a wrong done or a crime committed (in the latter case, generally under oath); an information; accusation; the initial bill in proceedings in equity.

Syn. -- Lamentation; murmuring; sorrow; grief; disease; illness; disorder; malady; ailment.

 

© Webster 1913.