{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/my-mothers-kiss",
 "title": "My Mother’s Kiss",
 "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": 1,
 "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"
  ]
 },
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  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-1871",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp",
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248",
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   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-full-text-1895",
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   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-idylls-of-the-bible-1901",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100319488",
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   "https://archive.org/details/25th-annual-report-of-the-board-of-managers-of-the-home-etc",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
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  "longest_line_chars": 39,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My mother’s kiss, my mother’s kiss,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I feel its impress now;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As in the bright and happy days",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She pressed it on my brow.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You say it is a fancied thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within my memory fraught;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To me it has a sacred place⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The treasure house of thought.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Again, I feel her fingers glide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid my clustering hair;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I see the love-light in her eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When all my life was fair.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Again, I hear her gentle voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In warning or in love.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How precious was the faith that taught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My soul of things above.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The music of her voice is stilled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her lips are paled in death.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As precious pearls I’ll clasp her words",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until my latest breath.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The world has scattered round my path",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Honor and wealth and fame;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But naught so precious as the thoughts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That gather round her name.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And friends have placed upon my brow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The laurels of renown;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But she first taught me how to wear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My manhood as a crown.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My hair is silvered o’er with age,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m longing to depart;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To clasp again my mother’s hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be a child at heart.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To roam with her the glory-land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where saints and angels greet;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To cast our crowns with songs of love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At our Redeemer’s feet.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}