{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/a-little-child-shall-lead-them",
 "title": "“A Little Child Shall Lead Them”",
 "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": 8,
 "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": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "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": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
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 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Only a little scrap of blue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Preserved with loving care,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But earth has not a brilliant hue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To me more bright and fair.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Strong drink, like a raging demon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laid on my heart his hand,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When my darling joined with others",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Loyal Legion band.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But mystic angels called away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My loved and precious child,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And o’er life’s dark and stormy way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swept waves of anguish wild.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This badge of the Loyal Legion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We placed upon her breast,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As she lay in her little coffin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Taking her last sweet rest.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To wear that badge as a token",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She earnestly did crave,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So we laid it on her bosom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To wear it in the grave.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where sorrow would never reach her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor harsh words smite her ear;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor her eyes in death dimmed slumber",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would ever shed a tear.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“What means this badge?” said her father,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom we had tried to save;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who said, when we told her story,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Don’t put it in the grave.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We took the badge from her bosom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And laid it on a chair;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And men by drink deluded",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knelt by that badge in prayer.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And vowed in that hour of sorrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From drink they would abstain;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And this little badge became the wedge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which broke their galling chain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And lifted the gloomy shadows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That overspread my life,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And flooding my home with gladness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made me a happy wife.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And this is why this scrap of blue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is precious in my sight;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It changed my sad and gloomy home",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From darkness into light.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}