{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/death-of-zombi",
 "title": "Death of Zombi",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1871,
  "venue": "Poems (1871)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp"
  ]
 },
 "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
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  "longest_line_chars": 52,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Cruel in vengeance, reckless in wrath,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The hunters of men bore down on our path;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Inhuman and fierce, the offer they gave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was freedom in death or the life of a slave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cheek of the mother grew pallid with dread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the tidings of evil around us were spread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And closer and closer she strained to her heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The children she feared they would sever apart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The brows of our maidens grew gloomy and sad;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hot tears burst from eyes once sparkling and glad.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our young men stood ready to join in the fray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That hung as a pall ’round our people that day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our leaders gazed angry and stern on the strife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For freedom to them was dearer than life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There was mourning at home and death in the street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For carnage and famine together did meet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pale lips of hunger were asking for bread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While husbands and fathers lay bleeding and dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For days we withstood the tempests of wrath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That scattered destruction and death in our path,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till, broken and peeled, we yielded at last,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the glory and strength of our kingdom were past.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But Zombi, our leader, and warlike old chief,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gazed down on our woe with anger and grief;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tyrant for him forged fetters in vain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His freedom-girt limbs had worn their last chain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Defiance and daring still flashed from his eye;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A freeman he’d lived and free he would die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So he climbed to the verge of a dangerous steep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resolved from its margin to take a last leap;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a fearful death and a bloody grave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were dearer to him than the life of a slave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor went he alone to the mystic land⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There were other warriors in his band,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who rushed with him to Death’s dark gate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All wrapped in the shroud of a mournful fate.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}