{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/free-labor",
 "title": "Free Labor",
 "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": 14,
 "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": [
   "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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I wear an easy garment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er it no toiling slave",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wept tears of hopeless anguish,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In his passage to the grave.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And from its ample folds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall rise no cry to God,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon its warp and woof shall be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No stain of tears and blood.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, lightly shall it press my form,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unladened with a sigh,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I shall not ’mid its rustling hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some sad despairing cry.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This fabric is too light to bear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The weight of bondsmen’s tears,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I shall not in its texture trace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The agony of years.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Too light to bear a smother’d sigh,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From some lorn woman’s heart.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose only wreath of household love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is rudely torn apart.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then lightly shall it press my form,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unburden’d by a sigh;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And from its seams and folds shall rise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No voice to pierce the sky,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And witness at the throne of God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In language deep and strong,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That I have nerv’d Oppression’s hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For deeds of guilt and wrong.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}