{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/nothing-and-something",
 "title": "Nothing and Something",
 "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": 20,
 "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": [
   "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": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 47,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "It is nothing to me, the beauty said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a careless toss of her pretty head;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The man is weak if he can’t refrain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the cup you say is fraught with pain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was something to her in after years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When her eyes were drenched with burning tears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she watched in lonely grief and dread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And startled to hear a staggering tread.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It is nothing to me, the mother said;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have no fear that my boy will tread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the downward path of sin and shame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And crush my heart and darken his name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was something to her when that only son",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the path of right was early won,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And madly cast in the flowing bowl",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A ruined body and sin-wrecked soul.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It is nothing to me, the young man cried:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In his eye was a flash of scorn and pride;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I heed not the dreadful things ye tell:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I can rule myself I know full well.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was something to him when in prison he lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The victim of drink, life ebbing away;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thought of his wretched child and wife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the mournful wreck of his wasted life.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It is nothing to me, the merchant said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As over his ledger he bent his head;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m busy to-day with tare and tret,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I have no time to fume and fret.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was something to him when over the wire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A message came from a funeral pyre⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A drunken conductor had wrecked a train,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his wife and child were among the slain.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It is nothing to me, the voter said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The party’s loss is my greatest dread;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then gave his vote for the liquor trade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though hearts were crushed and drunkards made.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was something to him in after life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When his daughter became a drunkard’s wife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And her hungry children cried for bread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And trembled to hear their father’s tread.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Is it nothing for us to idly sleep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the cohorts of death their vigils keep?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To gather the young and thoughtless in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And grind in our midst a grist of sin?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is something, yes, all, for us to stand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clasping by faith our Saviour’s hand;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To learn to labor, live and fight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the side of God and changeless light.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}