{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/a-grain-of-sand",
 "title": "A Grain of Sand",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Atlanta Offering: Poems",
 "book_slug": "atlanta-offering",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1895,
  "venue": "Atlanta Offering: Poems (1895)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsonmiscellan00harp",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-1871",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69249",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007491600",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100774124",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-full-text-1895",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100488369",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-idylls-of-the-bible-1901",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100319488",
   "https://archive.org/details/historyofafrican00payn",
   "https://archive.org/details/WeeklyAngloAfricanI",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1858-05-14_28_20",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000500702",
   "https://archive.org/details/undergroundrailr00stil",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_sketches-of-southern-life-1872",
   "https://archive.org/details/25th-annual-report-of-the-board-of-managers-of-the-home-etc",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_light-beyond-the-darkness",
   "https://archive.org/details/ame-church-review-1900-04"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
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 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you see this grain of sand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lying loosely in my hand?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you know to me it brought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just a simple loving thought?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When one gazes night by night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the glorious stars of light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh how little seems the span",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Measured round the life of man.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh! how fleeting are his years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With their smiles and their tears;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can it be that God does care",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For such atoms as we are?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then outspake this grain of sand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I was fashioned by His hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the star lit realms of space",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was made to have a place.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Should the ocean flood the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were its mountains ’gainst me hurled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the force they could employ",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wouldn’t a single grain destroy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if I, a thing so light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have a place within His sight;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are linked unto his throne",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cannot live nor die alone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“In the everlasting arms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mid life’s dangers and alarms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let calm trust your spirit fill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know He’s God, and then be still.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trustingly I raised my head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hearing what the atom said;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knowing man is greater far",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than the brightest sun or star.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}