{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/the-dying-queen",
 "title": "The Dying Queen",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Sketches of Southern Life",
 "book_slug": "sketches-of-southern-life",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 8,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1872,
  "venue": "Sketches of Southern Life (1872)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_sketches-of-southern-life-1872",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69249"
  ]
 },
 "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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The strength that bore her on for years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was ebbing fast away,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And o’er the pale and life-worn face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death’s solemn shadows lay.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With tender love and gentle care,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Friends gathered round her bed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And for her sake each footfall hushed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The echoes of its tread.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They knew the restlessness of death",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through every nerve did creep,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And carefully they tried to lull",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dying Queen to sleep.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In vain she felt Death’s icy hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her failing heart-strings shake;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, rousing up, she firmly said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I’d meet my God awake.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Awake, I’ve met the battle’s shock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And born the cares of state;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor shall I take your lethean cup,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And slumber at death’s gate.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Did I not watch with eyes alert,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The path where foes did tend;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And shall I veil my eyes with sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To meet my God and friend?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, rather from my weary lids,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This heavy slumber shake,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That I may pass the mystic vale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And meet my God awake.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ],
 "notes": [
  {
   "id": "speaker-labels-missing",
   "kind": "defect",
   "raised": "2026-08-12",
   "what": "The printed poem sets speaker labels — Second Voice — over its stanzas. They are not in `parts` and not in the verse.",
   "consequence": "Left released: the verse itself is complete and in order, and what is missing is apparatus rather than structure of the kind that reorganises the poem. Recorded so the page is not read as the whole of the printing.",
   "to_settle": "Add the labels as parts, from the witness.",
   "checked_against": [
    "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69249"
   ]
  }
 ]
}