{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/jamies-puzzle",
 "title": "Jamie’s Puzzle",
 "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": 18,
 "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",
   "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
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 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There was grief within our household",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because of a vacant chair.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Our mother, so loved and precious,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No longer was sitting there.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our hearts grew heavy with sorrow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our eyes with tears were blind,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And little Jamie was wondering,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why we were left behind.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We had told our little darling,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the land of love and light,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the saints all crowned with glory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And enrobed in spotless white.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We said that our precious mother,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had gone to that land so fair,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To dwell with beautiful angels,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to be forever there.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But the child was sorely puzzled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why dear grandmamma should go",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To dwell in a stranger city,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When her children loved her so.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But again the mystic angel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came with swift and silent tread,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And our sister, Jamie’s mother,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was enrolled among the dead.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To us the mystery deepened,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To Jamie it seemed more clear;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Grandma, he said, must be lonesome,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mamma has gone to her.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But the question lies unanswered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In our little Jamie’s mind,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Why she should go to our mother,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And leave her children behind;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To dwell in that lovely city,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From all that was dear to part,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From children who loved to nestle",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So closely around her heart.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear child, like you, we are puzzled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With problems that still remain;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But think in the great hereafter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their meaning will all be plain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}