{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/the-burdens-of-all",
 "title": "The Burdens of All",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1900,
  "venue": "Poems (Philadelphia: 1006 Bainbridge Street, 1900), page 90",
  "note": "Located in the 1900 scan on disk under the heading THE BURDENS OF ALL. First located printing. Poems (Philadelphia: 1006 Bainbridge Street, 1900) is the enlarged printing: its contents leaf still ends at “An Appeal to My Country Women … 72”, as the 1896 and 1898 printings do, and the poems from page 75 on are set after the contents without being listed in it. The poem is in neither the 1896 nor the 1898 printing on disk. All three printings carry “Copyrighted, 1895, by Frances E. W. Harper”, and an earlier periodical printing has not been ruled out.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poem00harp"
  ]
 },
 "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": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We may sigh o’er the heavy burdens",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the black, the brown and white;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But if we all clasped hands together",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The burdens would be more light.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How to solve life’s saddest problems,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its weariness, want and woe,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was answered by One who suffered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In Palestine long ago.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He gave from his heart this precept,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To ease the burdens of men,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“As ye would that others do to you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do ye even so to them.”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Life’s heavy, wearisome burdens",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will change to a gracious trust",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When men shall learn in the light of God",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be merciful and just.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where war has sharpened his weapons,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And slavery masterful had,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Let white and black and brown unite",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To build the kingdom of God.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And never attempt in madness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To build a kingdom or state,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Through greed of gold or lust of power,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the crumbling stones of hate.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The burdens will always be heavy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sunshine fade into night,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till mercy and justice shall cement",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The black, the brown and the white.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And earth shall answer with gladness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The herald angel’s refrain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When “Peace on earth, good will to men”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was the burden of their strain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}