{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/a-mothers-heroism",
 "title": "A Mother’s Heroism",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects",
 "book_slug": "poems-on-miscellaneous-subjects",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 11,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1854,
  "venue": "Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsonmiscellan00harp",
   "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42194389"
  ]
 },
 "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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
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  "longest_line_chars": 41,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The murmurs of a distant strife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fell on a mother’s ear;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Her son had yielded up his life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mid scenes of wrath and fear.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They told her how he’d spent his breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In pleading for the dumb,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And how the glorious martyr wreath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her child had nobly won.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They told her of his courage high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mid brutal force and might;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How he had nerved himself to die",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In battling for the right.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It seemed as if a fearful storm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swept wildly round her soul;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A moment, and her fragile form",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bent ’neath its fierce control.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From lip and brow the color fled⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But light flashed to her eye:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“ ’Tis well! ’tis well!” the mother said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“That thus my child should die.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“ ’Tis well that, to his latest breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He plead for liberty;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Truth nerved him for the hour of death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And taught him how to die.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“It taught him how to cast aside",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Earth’s honors and renown;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To trample on her fame and pride,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And win a martyr’s crown.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}