{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/lines",
 "title": "Lines",
 "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": 15,
 "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": 52,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "At the Portals of the Future,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Full of madness, guilt and gloom,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood the hateful form of Slavery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crying, Give, Oh! give me room⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Room to smite the earth with cursing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Room to scatter, rend and slay,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From the trembling mother’s bosom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Room to tear her child away;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Room to trample on the manhood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the country far and wide;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Room to spread o’er every Eden",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slavery’s scorching lava-tide.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Pale and trembling stood the Future,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quailing ’neath his frown of hate,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As he grasped with bloody clutches",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The great keys of Doom and Fate.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In his hand he held a banner",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All festooned with blood and tears:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas a fearful ensign, woven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the grief and wrong of years.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On his brow he wore a helmet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Decked with strange and cruel art;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Every jewel was a life-drop",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wrung from some poor broken heart.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though her cheek was pale and anxious,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, with look and brow sublime,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By the pale and trembling Future",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood the Crisis of our time.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And from many a throbbing bosom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came the words in fear and gloom,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Tell us, Oh! thou coming Crisis,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What shall be our country’s doom?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Shall the wings of dark destruction",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brood and hover o’er our land,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till we trace the steps of ruin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By their blight, from strand to strand?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With a look and voice prophetic",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spake the solemn Crisis then:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I have only mapped the future",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the erring sons of men.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If ye strive for Truth and Justice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If ye battle for the Right,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye shall lay your hands all strengthened",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On God’s robe of love and light;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But if ye trample on His children,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To his ear will float each groan,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Jar the cords that bind them to Him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they’ll vibrate at his throne.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And the land that forges fetters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Binds the weak and poor in chains,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Must in blood or tears of sorrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wash away her guilty stains.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}