{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/rizpah-the-daughter-of-ai",
 "title": "Rizpah, the Daughter of Ai",
 "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": null,
 "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": {
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  "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",
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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-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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   "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": 45,
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 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Tidings! sad tidings for the daughter of Ai,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are bearing her prince and loved away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Destruction falls like a mournful pall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the fallen house of ill-fated Saul.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Rizpah hears that her loved must die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But she hears it all with a tearless eye;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And clasping her hand with grief and dread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She meekly bows her queenly head.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The blood has left her blanching cheek,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her quivering lips refuse to speak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh! grief like hers has learned no tone⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A world of grief is all its own.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But the deed is done, and the hand is stay’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That havoc among the brethren made,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Rizpah takes her lowly seat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To watch the princely dead at her feet.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The jackal crept out with a stealthy tread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To batten and feast on the noble dead;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The vulture bore down with a heavy wing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To dip his beak in life’s stagnant spring.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The hyena heard the jackal’s howl,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he bounded forth with a sullen growl,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Rizpah’s shriek rose on the air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a tone from the caverns of despair.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She sprang from her sad and lowly seat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a moment her heart forgot to beat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the blood rushed up to her marble cheek",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a flash to her eye so sad and meek.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The vulture paused in his downward flight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As she raised her form to its queenly height,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hyena’s eye had a horrid glare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As he turned again to his desert lair.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The jackal slunk back with a quickened tread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From his cowardly search of Rizpah’s dead;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unsated he turned from the noble prey,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Subdued by a glance of the daughter of Ai.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh grief! that a mother’s heart should know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such a weary weight of consuming woe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For seldom if ever earth has known",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such love as the daughter of Ai hath known.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}