---
title: "She's She, and I'm I"
author: Gwern, Claude-5.1-Fable
description: "<span class='reader-mode-not'>A looking-glass poem after Lewis Carroll: 15 lines read down and then up around 5 palindromes, with the poem itself behind the middle one. Carroll: “as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it.”</span>"
thumbnail: /doc/fiction/fantasy/1889-johntennniel-aliceinwonderland-alicefindingtinylockeddoorbehindcurtain-monochrome.jpg
created: 2026-10-06
modified: 2026-10-07
status: finished
confidence: fiction
importance: 4
css-extension: dropcaps-not reader-mode toc-not index
...

<!--
COMMENTARY

A reverso about a fall: 15 lines read down, a hinge of 5 palindromes, and the same 15 lines read back up.
Read down, every consolation is refused; read up, every despair is refused; 3 verdicts are refused in both directions.
The fiction is Lewis Carroll's (the fall down the rabbit-hole and the hall of locked doors), and the middle row opens onto the whole poem again.

BACKGROUND:
- Form: the reverso, introduced by Marilyn Singer (Mirror Mirror, 2010). The second stanza is the first with its lines in reverse order. Singer's rule allows changes of punctuation and capitals only; the words of this poem have no punctuation, so stanza 2 changes nothing.
- Sources: Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865; AAIW), chapters 1 and 2, and Through the Looking-Glass (1871; TTLG), chapter 1. Every Carroll quotation here and in the epigraphs was checked against the Project Gutenberg texts (#11, #12).
- History: first version 2026-10-06, 12 lines, titled "Looking-Glass", with the hinge "She arrived". Revised 2026-10-06 and 2026-10-07 with Claude. Changes: hinge to "She came through"; a third reversing triple (L4, L5, L6); denied claims hung from their operators; the pivot, the epigraph frame and the self-transclusion; the title; the line numbers.

STRUCTURE AND FORM:
- 35 rendered rows: 15 going down, 5 in the pivot, and the same 15 coming back up.
- Labels: a stanza row is named by the number typed at its head, L1 to L15. Stanza 1 counts up (L1 to L15) and stanza 2 counts back down (L15 to L1), so a label names the same words in both stanzas, and the mirror of L7 is L7. The pivot rows carry no number on the page and are labelled P1 to P5 here.
- Each stanza has 15 rows: 9 claims (statements about "she") and 6 operators (negators with an open complement, filled by the next row in reading order).
- Chain rule: in an unbroken run of claim, operator, claim, operator, claim, each interior claim is governed from above when read down and from below when read up, so it is denied both ways; only the 2 end claims of a run change truth value. The stanza is 3 runs (L1 to L3, L4 to L6, L7 to L15), which gives 6 reversing claims and 3 constants.
- Reversing claims: still falling (L1), landed (L3), nothing broke her fall (L4), got to her feet (L6), every door locked (L7), came through (L15).
- Constants: the hole was a kindness (L9), she chose this (L11), she was never lost (L13). Events flip and verdicts do not: she was lost, she did not choose it, and it was no kindness.
- Each stanza asserts 3 claims and denies 6. Stanza 2 asserts 3 distinct events in reverse order of time: came through (L15), got to her feet (L6), landed (L3).
- The last row is L1 again, denied where it was asserted. The form cannot assert an ending; it can only stop.

KEY FORMAL TECHNIQUES:
- Operators in 3 moods, 2 of each: imperative (Do not tell me; Do not pretend), interrogative (Who told you; Who could believe), modal (It would be a lie to say; Nobody should say). Each is incomplete without the next row, which is why reading direction matters. An affirmative operator (Say it now; Know this) would assert its neighbors from either side, and the mirror would reverse nothing.
- Layout as truth value: an asserted claim stands at the left margin; a denied claim hangs from the end of its operator (the " / " break); the pivot rows are centered, on the axis.
- Line numbers: each stanza row begins with its number, typed into the text and escaped so that Pandoc reads no list. The numbers belong to the rows and reverse with them: stanza 2 counts down because it is stanza 1 read upward, and nothing is added to make it so. The hang breaks the visual mirror, because a claim that hangs on the way down stands at the margin on the way up, so the 2 stanzas have different silhouettes; the number restores the identity, since the same number is the same words. A hung claim takes its number out to the hang with it, so the chain rule can be checked by eye. The claims left at the margin are 1, 4 and 7 going down, and 15, 6 and 3 coming up. The numbers that hang in both stanzas are 9, 11 and 13 (the constants); 2, 5, 8, 10, 12 and 14 (the operators) never hang. The count stops at 15 on each side of the pivot, beside "She came through", and returns to 1.
- Pivot: 5 letter palindromes of 11, 13, 9, 11 and 13 letters, machine-checked. The pivot is not reversed row for row as the stanzas are: its rows are palindromes singly and partners in pairs. P2 is P4 wrapped in N…N, so the negation is the outermost pair of letters. P1 and P5 share the frame DRAWN + x + NWARD, with x = I and x = EDE. P1 and P2 belong to the way down, P4 and P5 to the way up, and the pivot reverses into its own negation as the poem does.
- Center: P3 is row 18 of the 35. Its middle letter is I, the last word of the title, and it is the only first-person statement in the poem.
- Self-transclusion: P3 is the collapsed label of a block that includes div#poem into itself. A mirror set at the center of a mirror is still a mirror: at every depth the stanza rows match exactly and the pivot rows match their partners (P1 with P5, P2 with P4), as in the poem itself (mise en abyme; in heraldry the abyme is the center of the shield). Each level opened adds a descent (stanza 1, P1, P2) above and owes an ascent (P4, P5, stanza 2) below, last in and first out. The page always shows exactly one closed "I saw I was I", at the bottom of whatever has been opened. Every copy carries its numbers: with 2 levels open, the page counts up to 15 on 3 occasions before the closed center, and back down to 1 on 3 after it.
- Frame: the head and tail epigraphs come from the same chapter in book order, the fall and then the hall on its second circuit. Each stanza is 15 rows, and the door is "about fifteen inches high"; the numbers are the ruler.
- Rhythm: accentual, 3 to 7 syllables a row. The only 4-beat rows (L7, L8) are adjacent in both directions and are trochaic tetrameter catalectic. Stanza 1 closes on 2 stresses (CAME THROUGH); stanza 2 closes on 3 feminine rows (L3, L2, L1) and on the only present-tense indicative.
- Sound: no rhyme scheme. Echoes: locked/lost; tried/lie/kindness; broke/told/hole/chose/Nobody; Do/Who/you/through; never/Never/Ever/even/Eve.

THEMES / ALLUSIONS:
- Title: AAIW ch2, Alice checking that she has not been changed for Ada or Mabel: "Besides, she's she, and I'm I, and—oh dear, how puzzling it all is!" Each half is a word palindrome (she is she; I am I), and I'M I is a letter palindrome in capitals that a looking-glass leaves unchanged.
- 2 voices and 1 girl: AAIW ch1: "this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people." Compare L12, "Do not pretend".
- Head epigraph: AAIW ch1, spoken during the fall. The emphasis on "through" is Carroll's, and it is the hinge word (L15, on both sides of the pivot). "The people that walk with their heads downward" are stanza 2. "Antipathies", her slip for Antipodes, also names the 2 opposed voices.
- Tail epigraph: AAIW ch1. "On the second time round" is stanza 2, and the next reading; the "low curtain she had not noticed before" is the collapse at P3; the door is "about fifteen inches high", and the count in each stanza stops at 15. The key fits that door, but "she could not even get her head through the doorway", so the consolation is Carroll's and it is partial.
- L1: AAIW ch1: "Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end!"
- L3, L4, L6: AAIW ch1: "thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over. Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment".
- L7: AAIW ch1: "There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked".
- L9: the rabbit-hole, which the text also calls a well: "Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly".
- L15: Carroll's second title, and "came through" in the sense of surviving.
- Pivot: TTLG ch1: "the room you can see through the glass—that's just the same as our drawing room, only the things go the other way." Going through at P3 finds the same room.
- P4: Eve, the other fall. Read against Genesis and Milton, the 3 constants refuse the theodicy: no free choice (L11), no fortunate fall (L9), and she was lost (L13).
- P5: Edenward, the Fall run backwards; also "the loveliest garden you ever saw", beyond the little door.
- Description field: AAIW ch1, Alice dozing as she falls: "'Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, 'Do bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it."
- Ancestor: the Palinode of Stesichorus, as Plato quotes it (Phaedrus 243a, Fowler's translation): "That saying is not true; thou didst not go within the well-oared ships, nor didst thou come to the walls of Troy". It is 3 denials about a woman's journey, and his sight returned when he had written it.

INTERPRETATION:
- Plain reading: 2 voices dispute what became of a woman who fell. Neither saw it (L5, "Who told you"). They disagree about every event and agree about every verdict.
- With the title and P3: both voices are hers. "She" is the fall held at arm's length and the figure in the glass, and the only "I" in the poem stands exactly on the mirror plane.
- The tremor: stanza 1 ends on its firmest cadence while denying that she came through; stanza 2 ends on its weakest while denying that she is still falling, and "Do not tell me" carries the idiom in which the speaker already fears it. The hope is litotes throughout: not nothing, not every.
- The recursion: opening P3 answers "I saw I was I" with "She is still falling". The center is never reached, only deferred.
- The count: stanza 2 counts down while it asserts that she came through, and its last number is 1. The count ends where the fall began, and there is no row 0 to land on.

NOTES:
- LOCK: no punctuation in the words of any row; the only marks in the stanzas are the periods after the line numbers. Do not restore the commas in P2 and P4.
- LOCK: a word changed in a line must be changed in both stanzas. Same number, same words.
- LOCK: every stanza row begins with its line number, a backslash-escaped period and a space, with a non-breaking space as well after a single digit, so that the words line up under those of rows 10 to 15. Unescaped, Pandoc reads the stanza as an ordered list, and stanza 2 then counts 15, 16, 17. The number is not scanned.
- LOCK: audit comments go at the end of the source line. A comment between an operator and its " / " changes the measured length of the operator and misplaces the hang.
- LOCK: nothing inside div#poem may carry an id, because the nested copies would repeat it.
- "Edenward" is a nonce formation on the model of heavenward, unattested as far as 2 searches went. Keep it.
- Without JavaScript the collapse is open, so the center row shows twice (the label and the link), and each " / " shows as a slash on one line; the numbers remain. A doubled center row is still a mirror.
- Rejected titles, now absorbed: "Looking-Glass" (the first title); "Ever Ajar, Eve" (P4); "Drawn Inward" (P1); "Drawn Edenward" (P5); "The Antipathies" (head epigraph); "On the Second Time Round" (tail epigraph). "Drawn Onward" was avoided, at P5 and as a title, because Nayeri & Rockefeller's 2024 picture book of that name is itself a palindrome about grief.
- Rejected variant: the recursion appended after the tail epigraph, labelled "She is still falling…". That makes a loop (P, P, P), in which each copy is mirrored and the page is not.
- Rejected numberings: 1 to 35 straight through (the mirror becomes 36 − n, and the 15 is lost); a gutter of CSS counters on div.poem.line-numbers (a single muted column, tested and working, but it needs new site CSS, shows nothing where that CSS is absent, and has to be told to count down); a pre.poem-html block with typed numbers and typed hangs (a single column, but the " / " markup is given up).
-->

<!--
LLM META-BLOCK
- Page type: poem (reverso) with numbered lines, a palindromic pivot and a recursive self-transclusion. Reader-mode page, no sections, no footnotes.
- State: text settled 2026-10-07. Rendered and exercised on 2026-10-07 in headless Chromium 141 against the site's own client-side JS and CSS (gwern.net repository, commit 3f21854 of 2026-10-04), with the site change below applied for the print test only. The Haskell build passes were not run, and no other browser was tried.
- Needs from the site, not present at that commit: a guard in the beforeprint handler of rewrite.js; until then this page must not be printed. See the NOTE at the collapse. Nothing else: the numbers are text.
- Must hold after any edit: stanza 2 is stanza 1 reversed, row for row, numbers included; every pivot row is a letter palindrome; 15 + 5 + 15 rows; every stanza row begins with its escaped number; every audit comment has the right label, role and syllable count.
- Open: the author list (whichever model drafted the first 12-line version is not credited); a thumbnail; narrow screens: below about 810px at least 1 hung row runs past the right edge (the longest row is 63 characters with its numbers), and on a phone nearly all do, with each stanza scrolling sideways, because the site keeps a " / " row on one line however wide it is (a page-specific rule that caps the hang there is drafted, not adopted).
-->

<div class="abstract reader-mode-not">
A woman has fallen, and 2 voices dispute whether she has landed.
The poem is a reverso: 15 lines read down, then the same 15 read up, with no word changed.
Read down, each consolation is refused; read up, each despair is; 3 verdicts are refused both ways.

A claim standing at the left margin is asserted, and a claim hung from the line above it is denied by that line.
The lines are numbered 1 to 15 on the way down and 15 to 1 on the way back, so a number names the same line on both sides of the glass.
Between the stanzas stand 5 palindromes, which read the same from either side.

The title, both epigraphs, the fall, and the locked doors are [Lewis Carroll's](!W), from the first 2 chapters of [_Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_](!W).
The middle line opens.
</div>

<!--
FORM
     Kind: reverso (line palindrome). 2 stanzas of 15 rows around a 5-row pivot; 35 rows.
     Labels: L1 to L15 are the 15 lines, as numbered on the page; stanza 1 runs L1 to L15 and stanza 2 runs L15 to L1. P1 to P5 are the pivot rows, which carry no number.
     Units: 9 claims (indicative, about "she") and 6 operators (negators that take the next row as complement).
     Syntax: claims and operators are ordered so that every operator governs exactly the row after it, in either direction; a claim not directly after an operator stands asserted.
     Layout: a governed claim hangs from the end of its operator by " / "; an asserted claim stands flush left; pivot rows are centered. Position is truth value. Each stanza row begins with its line number, so the numbers run 1 to 15 down stanza 1 and 15 to 1 down stanza 2.
     Meter: accentual free verse, 3 to 7 syllables and 1 to 4 beats a row; no rhyme scheme (incidental echoes are tagged).
     Constraints: no punctuation in the words; stanza 2 is stanza 1 reversed with no word changed and no number changed; every pivot row is a letter palindrome; the pivot halves differ only by N…N (P2, P4) and IN, EDEN (P1, P5); first person only in "me" (L2) and in P3.
     Tone/register: plain, forensic, unconsoling; hope only as litotes.
-->

<!--
ARGUMENT ARC
     S1 (L1 to L15), read down: the fall asserted (still falling; nothing broke it; every door locked) and each consolation refused (landed; got up; a kindness; chosen; never lost; came through).
     PIVOT (P1 to P5): the glass. P1 and P2 close S1 (inward; never ajar). P4 and P5 open S2 (ever ajar; Edenward). P3 is the fixed point, and the door onto the poem again.
     S2 (L15 to L1), read up: the same lines reversed. 3 outcomes asserted (came through; got to her feet; landed), 3 despairs refused, and the 3 verdicts still refused (L13, L11, L9).
     Close: the count returns to L1, now denied. The tail epigraph sends the reader round again.
     Pronoun track: per stanza, she 7 times, her twice, me once, you once; in the pivot, I 3 times and Eve once. The title sets she against I, and P3 puts I at the center of a poem about she.
     Tone track: flat assertion and refusal (S1); incantation (pivot); the same words as reprieve, ending in a plea (S2).
-->

<!--
SCANSION KEY
Applies to: all 35 rendered rows inside div#poem. A source line containing " / " carries 2 rows.

Labels:
     L1 to L15     a stanza row, named by the line number typed at its head (the number is not scanned). Stanza 1 lists L1 to L15 and stanza 2 lists L15 to L1; the same label is the same words.
     P1 to P5      a pivot row; no number on the page.

Format per rendered row, as one HTML comment placed after the verse text and before the backslash:
     L## ROLE: N: syl1 syl2 … sylN. pattern. [up: ROLE] notes [echo: word/partner@L##]     (stanza 1)
     L## ROLE: N: syl1 syl2 … sylN. pattern. [down: ROLE]                                  (stanza 2)
     P# PAL: N: syl1 syl2 … sylN. pattern. notes [pair P#]                                 (pivot)
For a source line with " / ", both comments stand at the end of the line, in row order. Never put a comment between the operator and the " / ".

ROLE tags:
     ASSERT        claim standing asserted (flush left)
     DENY          claim governed by the operator on the row above, and hung from it
     DENY-CONST    as DENY, and denied in both stanzas (the 3 constants)
     OP            operator; takes the next row as its complement
     PAL           pivot row; a letter palindrome (letters only, case folded)

Conventions:
     N is the syllable count of the row. Syllables are numbered 1 to N; hyphens join the syllables of one word.
     Stressed syllables are in CAPS and unstressed ones in lower-case.
     Pattern: / stressed, x unstressed, (/) secondary or optional stress.
     [up: ROLE] gives the role the same line takes in stanza 2, and [down: ROLE] the role it took in stanza 1. [pair P#] names the partner of a pivot row.
     Notes are given on stanza 1 and the pivot only; stanza 2 rows repeat the scansion and give the role on the way down.

Pronunciation commitments:
     every = EV-ery, 2 syllables.
     Edenward = E-den-ward, 3 syllables; ajar = a-JAR; even = E-ven; Eve is 1 syllable.
     Nobody = NO-bo-dy, with no secondary stress marked.
-->

<div class="epigraph">
> I wonder if I shall fall right *through* the earth!
> How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward!
> The Antipathies, I think---
</div>

<div id="poem">

<div class="poem">
<!-- STANZA 1 (L1–L15, numbered 1 up to 15; 9 claims + 6 operators): job=assert the fall and refuse each consolation; domain=fall, landing, doors, hole (AAIW ch1); tone=flat, forensic; structural-enjamb=each operator runs on into the claim hung beneath it (L3, L6, L9, L11, L13, L15); anchor-words=falling (L1), locked (L7), through (L15) -->
1\.&nbsp; She is still falling <!-- L1 ASSERT: 5: she1 is2 STILL3 FALL4-ing5. x x / / x. [up: DENY] Feminine; the only present-tense indicative. [echo: falling/fall@L4] --> \
2\.&nbsp; Do not tell me / 3\.&nbsp; She landed <!-- L2 OP: 4: DO1 not2 TELL3 me4. / x / x. [up: OP] Imperative; the only me. [echo: tell/told@L5] --> <!-- L3 DENY: 3: she1 LAND2-ed3. x / x. [up: ASSERT] Feminine. --> \
4\.&nbsp; Nothing broke her fall <!-- L4 ASSERT: 5: NO1-thing2 BROKE3 her4 FALL5. / x / x /. [up: DENY] [echo: broke/told@L5, hole@L9, chose@L11] --> \
5\.&nbsp; Who told you / 6\.&nbsp; She got to her feet <!-- L5 OP: 3: WHO1 TOLD2 you3. / / x. [up: OP] Interrogative; the only you. [echo: you/through@L15] --> <!-- L6 DENY: 5: she1 GOT2 to3 her4 FEET5. x / x x /. [up: ASSERT] AAIW ch1, jumped up on to her feet. --> \
7\.&nbsp; Every door she tried was locked <!-- L7 ASSERT: 7: EV1-ery2 DOOR3 she4 TRIED5 was6 LOCKED7. / x / x / x /. [up: DENY] Trochaic tetrameter catalectic. [echo: locked/lost@L13; tried/lie@L8] --> \
8\.&nbsp; It would be a lie to say / 9\.&nbsp; The hole was a kindness <!-- L8 OP: 7: IT1 would2 BE3 a4 LIE5 to6 SAY7. (/) x / x / x /. [up: OP] Modal; same meter as L7, weak first beat. [echo: say/say@L14] --> <!-- L9 DENY-CONST: 6: the1 HOLE2 was3 a4 KIND5-ness6. x / x x / x. [up: DENY-CONST] Feminine. The rabbit-hole. --> \
10\. Who could believe / 11\. She chose this <!-- L10 OP: 4: WHO1 could2 be3-LIEVE4. / x x /. [up: OP] Interrogative; choriamb. --> <!-- L11 DENY-CONST: 3: she1 CHOSE2 this3. x / (/). [up: DENY-CONST] Rhythmic twin of L15. --> \
12\. Do not pretend / 13\. She was never lost <!-- L12 OP: 4: DO1 not2 pre3-TEND4. / x x /. [up: OP] Imperative; choriamb. AAIW ch1, pretending to be two people. --> <!-- L13 DENY-CONST: 5: she1 was2 NEV3-er4 LOST5. x x / x /. [up: DENY-CONST] [echo: never/Never@P2; lost/locked@L7] --> \
14\. Nobody should say / 15\. She came through <!-- L14 OP: 5: NO1-bo2-dy3 should4 SAY5. / x x x /. [up: OP] Modal; Nobody answers the Who of L5 and L10. --> <!-- L15 DENY: 3: she1 CAME2 THROUGH3. x / /. [up: ASSERT] Hinge; firmest cadence in the stanza; the count stops here, at 15. [echo: through/you@L5] -->
</div>

<!-- PIVOT (P1–P5, 5 palindromes, no numbers): job=the glass, rows that read the same from either side; P1 and P2 close stanza 1, P4 and P5 open stanza 2, P3 is the fixed center and the door; domain=motion, door, self; tone=incantatory; structural-enjamb=none; anchor-words=inward (P1), I (P3), Edenward (P5) -->
<div class="poem">
<div class="text-center">
Drawn inward <!-- P1 PAL: 3: DRAWN1 IN2-ward3. / / x. Palindrome, 11 letters, middle I. Frame DRAWN + x + NWARD, x = I. [pair P5] --> \
Never ajar even <!-- P2 PAL: 6: NEV1-er2 a3-JAR4 E5-ven6. / x x / / x. Palindrome, 13 letters, middle J. = N + P4 + N. Feminine. No comma, on purpose. [pair P4] -->
</div>
</div>

<!-- NOTE: self-transclusion.
The collapse below holds an include-link to div#poem, which contains it.
An include-link inside a collapsed block does not fire until the block is expanded, and transclude.js has no loop guard, so each expansion adds one level.
A same-page include is sliced from a snapshot of this page, cached on first use (content.js), so every level is the same copy; include-unwrap drops the div#poem wrapper, so no id is repeated.
The snapshot is taken with this collapse open, so each cloned collapse arrives open and is closed again by collapse.js. In between, its link is registered for lazy loading, and the position check there (lazyLoadObserver, utility.js) ignores clipping: if the new center row lies inside the viewport at that moment, one more level loads unseen. It stops at one, because that copy's own link lies inside a closed collapse and is deferred.
Measured 2026-10-07 in headless Chromium 141 with the site's JS (commit 3f21854): one level and 72 elements per expansion; exactly one closed center at every depth. On the first expansion of an unscrolled page, no level loaded unseen in a viewport 1,000px or 2,000px high, and one did in a viewport 4,000px or 8,000px high (the new center row lies about 730px below the one clicked).
HAZARD: the beforeprint handler in rewrite.js transcludes every include-link and expands every injected container, synchronously. In the same test, printing this page to PDF ran for about 15 seconds, built 639 nested copies, overflowed the stack and crashed the tab; no PDF came out. The handler needs a guard: skip an include-link that lies inside its own target, and leave the collapse around it closed. With that guard the page prints as it stands on screen (tested, with an ordinary collapse and include as the control).
Do not add include-strict or include-even-when-collapsed to the link. Do not give anything in div#poem an id. -->
<div class="collapse">
<div class="abstract-collapse-only poem">
<div class="text-center">
I saw I was I <!-- P3 PAL: 5: i1 SAW2 i3 was4 I5. x / x x /. Palindrome, 9 letters, middle I. Fixed center, row 18 of the 35; label of the collapse. [echo: saw/was] -->
</div>
</div>

[I saw I was I](#poem){.include .include-unwrap}
</div>

<div class="poem">
<div class="text-center">
Ever ajar Eve <!-- P4 PAL: 5: EV1-er2 a3-JAR4 EVE5. / x x / /. Palindrome, 11 letters, middle J. Masculine. Vocative; no comma, on purpose. [pair P2] --> \
Drawn Edenward <!-- P5 PAL: 4: DRAWN1 E2-den3-ward4. / / x (/). Palindrome, 13 letters, middle D. Frame DRAWN + x + NWARD, x = EDE. Nonce word; keep. [pair P1] -->
</div>
</div>

<div class="poem">
<!-- STANZA 2 (L15–L1, numbered 15 down to 1, being the same rows; the lines of stanza 1 in reverse order): job=assert 3 outcomes, refuse 3 despairs, keep 3 verdicts refused; domain=as stanza 1; tone=the same words as reprieve, ending in a plea; structural-enjamb=6 hung claims (L13, L11, L9, L7, L4, L1); anchor-words=through (L15), feet (L6), falling (L1) -->
15\. She came through <!-- L15 ASSERT: 3: she1 CAME2 THROUGH3. x / /. [down: DENY] --> \
14\. Nobody should say / 13\. She was never lost <!-- L14 OP: 5: NO1-bo2-dy3 should4 SAY5. / x x x /. [down: OP] --> <!-- L13 DENY-CONST: 5: she1 was2 NEV3-er4 LOST5. x x / x /. [down: DENY-CONST] --> \
12\. Do not pretend / 11\. She chose this <!-- L12 OP: 4: DO1 not2 pre3-TEND4. / x x /. [down: OP] --> <!-- L11 DENY-CONST: 3: she1 CHOSE2 this3. x / (/). [down: DENY-CONST] --> \
10\. Who could believe / 9\.&nbsp; The hole was a kindness <!-- L10 OP: 4: WHO1 could2 be3-LIEVE4. / x x /. [down: OP] --> <!-- L9 DENY-CONST: 6: the1 HOLE2 was3 a4 KIND5-ness6. x / x x / x. [down: DENY-CONST] --> \
8\.&nbsp; It would be a lie to say / 7\.&nbsp; Every door she tried was locked <!-- L8 OP: 7: IT1 would2 BE3 a4 LIE5 to6 SAY7. (/) x / x / x /. [down: OP] --> <!-- L7 DENY: 7: EV1-ery2 DOOR3 she4 TRIED5 was6 LOCKED7. / x / x / x /. [down: ASSERT] --> \
6\.&nbsp; She got to her feet <!-- L6 ASSERT: 5: she1 GOT2 to3 her4 FEET5. x / x x /. [down: DENY] --> \
5\.&nbsp; Who told you / 4\.&nbsp; Nothing broke her fall <!-- L5 OP: 3: WHO1 TOLD2 you3. / / x. [down: OP] --> <!-- L4 DENY: 5: NO1-thing2 BROKE3 her4 FALL5. / x / x /. [down: ASSERT] --> \
3\.&nbsp; She landed <!-- L3 ASSERT: 3: she1 LAND2-ed3. x / x. [down: DENY] --> \
2\.&nbsp; Do not tell me / 1\.&nbsp; She is still falling <!-- L2 OP: 4: DO1 not2 TELL3 me4. / x / x. [down: OP] --> <!-- L1 DENY: 5: she1 is2 STILL3 FALL4-ing5. x x / / x. [down: ASSERT] -->
</div>

</div>

<!-- NOTE: MoS override: Numbers and metric units, the quoted "fifteen inches" stays as written; each stanza is 15 rows, and is numbered to 15. -->
<div class="epigraph">
> However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about 15 inches high...
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