{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/the-dying-fugitive",
 "title": "The Dying Fugitive",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1871,
  "venue": "Poems (1871)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp"
  ]
 },
 "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": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
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 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Slowly o’er his darkened features",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stole the warning shades of death,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And we knew the mystic angel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waited for his parting breath.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He had started for his freedom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his heart beat firm and high;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But before he won the guerdon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came the message⁠—he must die.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He must die when just before him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay the longed-for precious prize,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the hopes that lit him onward",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Faded out before his eyes.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For awhile a fearful madness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rested on his weary brain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And he thought the hateful tyrant",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had rebound his galling chain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then he cried in bitter anguish,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take me where that good man dwells,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For a name to freedom precious",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lingered ’mid life’s shattered cells.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But as sunshine gently stealing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the storm-cloud’s gloomy track,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the tempests of his bosom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came the light of reason back.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And, without a sigh or murnur",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the friends he’d left behind,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Calmly yielded he his spirit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the Father of mankind.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thankful that so near to freedom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He with eager feet had trod,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ere his ransom’d spirit rested",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the bosom of his God.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}