{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/eliza-harris",
 "title": "Eliza Harris",
 "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": null,
 "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": {
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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": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Like a fawn from the arrow, startled and wild,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A woman swept by us, bearing a child;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In her eye was the night of a settled despair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And her brow was o’ershaded with anguish and care.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She was nearing the river⁠—in reaching the brink,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She heeded no danger, she paused not to think;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For she is a mother⁠—her child is a slave⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she’ll give him his freedom, or find him a grave!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It was a vision to haunt us, that innocent face⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So pale in its aspect, so fair in its grace;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the tramp of the horse and the bay of the hound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the fetters that gall, were trailing the ground!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She was nerv’d by despair, and strengthened by woe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As she leap’d o’er the chasms that yawn’d from below;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death howl’d in the tempest, and rav’d in the blast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But she heard not the sound till the danger was past.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh! how shall I speak of my proud country’s shame?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the stains on her glory, how give them their name?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How say that her banner in mockery waves⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her “star-spangled banner”⁠—o’er millions of slaves?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How say that the lawless may torture and chase",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A woman whose crime is the hue of her face?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How the depths of the forest may echo around",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the shrieks of despair, and the bay of the hound?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With her step on the ice, and her arm on her child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The danger was fearful, the pathway was wild;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, aided by Heaven, she gained a free shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the friends of humanity open’d their door.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So fragile and lovely, so fearfully pale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a lily that bends to the breath of the gale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save the heave of her breast, and the sway of her hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’d have thought her a statue of fear and despair.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In agony close to her bosom she press’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The life of her heart, the child of her breast:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh! love from its tenderness gathering might,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had strengthen’d her soul for the dangers of flight.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But she’s free!⁠—yes, free from the land where the slave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the hand of oppression must rest in the grave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where bondage and torture, where scourges and chains",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have plac’d on our banner indelible stains.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The bloodhounds have miss’d the scent of her way;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hunter is rifled and foil’d of his prey;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fierce jargon and cursing, with clanking of chains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make sounds of strange discord on Liberty’s plains.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With the rapture of love and fullness of bliss,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She plac’d on his brow a mother’s fond kiss:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh! poverty, danger and death she can brave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the child of her love is no longer a slave!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}