{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/light-in-darkness",
 "title": "Light in Darkness",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "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": [
   "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We’ve room to build holy altars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where our crumbling idols lay;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We’ve room for heavenly visions,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When our earth dreams fade away.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Through rifts and rents in our fortune",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We gazed with blinding tears,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till glimpses of light and beauty",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gilded our gloomy fears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "An angel stood at our threshold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We thought him a child of night,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till we saw the print of his steps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made lines of living light.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We had much the world calls precious;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We had heaps of shining dust;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He laid his hand on our treasures,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wrote on them moth and rust.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But still we had other treasures,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That gold was too poor to buy,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We clasped them closer and closer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But saw them fade and die.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our spirit grew faint and heavy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep shadows lay on our years,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till light from the holy city,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Streamed through our mist of tears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And we thanked the chastening angel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who shaded our earthly light,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For the light and beautiful visions",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That broke on our clearer sight.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our first view of the Holy City",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came through our darken’d years,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The songs that lightened our sorrows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We heard ’mid our night of tears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}