{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/be-active",
 "title": "Be Active",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1859,
  "venue": "The Weekly Anglo-African (New York)",
  "note": "Located in the bound gathering on disk, printed on a front page under the heading BE ACTIVE and signed “BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS”, beneath the standing masthead “Published every Saturday by Thos. Hamilton, 48 Beekman Street, New York”. The issue’s volume number, issue number and date are illegible in this scan — the masthead line reads “VOL. I.-M).” with the number lost. The item is catalogued as the 1859–1860 run, and the nearest legible datelines on either side of the poem are “NEW YORK, JULY 23, 1859” and “NEW YORK, JULY 30, 1859”, which is why the year is given as 1859 and the issue is not named.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/WeeklyAngloAfricanI"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-on-miscellaneous-subjects-1857",
   "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": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Onward, onward, sons of freedom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the great and glorious strife;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ve a high and holy mission",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the battle field of life.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See oppression’s feet of iron",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grind a brother to the ground,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And from bleeding heart and bosom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gapeth many a fearful wound.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sit not down with idle pity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gazing on his mighty wrong;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hurl the bloated tyrant from him⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Say my brother, oh, be strong!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See that sad, despairing mother",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clasp her burning brow in pain;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay your hand upon her fetters⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rend, oh! rend her galling chain!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here’s a pale and trembling maiden,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brutal arms around her thrown;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Christian father, save, oh! save her,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the love you bear your own!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yearly lay a hundred thousand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "New-born babes on Moloch’s shrine;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Crush these gory, reeking altars⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Christians, let this work be thine.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where the Southern roses blossom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weary lives go out in pain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dragging to death’s shadowy portals,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slavery’s heavy galling chain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Men of every clime and nation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every faith, and sect, and creed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay aside your idle jangling,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come and staunch the wounds that bleed.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On my people’s blighted bosom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mountain weights of sorrow lay;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Stop not now to ask the question,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who shall roll the stone away?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Set to work the moral forces,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That are yours of church and state;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Teach them how to war and battle",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Gainst oppression, wrong, and hate.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh! be faithful! Oh! be valiant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trusting not in human might;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Know that in the darkest conflict,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God is on the side of right!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}