{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/home-sweet-home",
 "title": "Home, Sweet Home",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Atlanta Offering: Poems",
 "book_slug": "atlanta-offering",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 13,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1895,
  "venue": "Atlanta Offering: Poems (1895)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248"
  ]
 },
 "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",
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   "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": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Sharers of a common country,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They had met in deadly strife;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Men who should have been as brothers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Madly sought each other’s life.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In the silence of the even,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the cannon’s lips were dumb,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thoughts of home and all its loved ones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the soldier’s heart would come.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On the margin of a river,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Mid the evening’s dews and damps,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Could be heard the sounds of music",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rising from two hostile camps.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One was singing of its section",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down in Dixie, Dixie’s land,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the other of the banner",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waved so long from strand to strand.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In the land where Dixie’s ensign",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Floated o’er the hopeful slave,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Rose the song that freedom’s banner,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Starry-lighted, long might wave.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From the fields of strife and carnage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gentle thoughts began to roam,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And a tender strain of music",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rose with words of “Home, Sweet Home.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then the hearts of strong men melted,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For amid our grief and sin",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Still remains that “touch of nature,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Telling us we all are kin.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In one grand but gentle chorus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Floating to the starry dome,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Came the words that brought them nearer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Words that told of “Home, Sweet Home.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For awhile, all strife forgotten,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They were only brothers then,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Joining in the sweet old chorus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not as soldiers, but as men.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Men whose hearts would flow together,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though apart their feet might roam,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Found a tie they could not sever,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the mem’ry of each home.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Never may the steps of carnage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shake our land from shore to shore,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But may mother, home and Heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be our watchwords evermore.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}