{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/the-slave-mother",
 "title": "The Slave Mother",
 "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",
   "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",
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   "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
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 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Heard you that shriek? It rose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So wildly on the air,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It seemed as if a burden’d heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was breaking in despair.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Saw you those hands so sadly clasped⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bowed and feeble head⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The shuddering of that fragile form⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That look of grief and dread?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Saw you the sad, imploring eye?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its every glance was pain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As if a storm of agony",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were sweeping through the brain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She is a mother, pale with fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her boy clings to her side,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And in her kirtle vainly tries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His trembling form to hide.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He is not hers, although she bore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For him a mother’s pains;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He is not hers, although her blood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is coursing through his veins!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He is not hers, for cruel hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May rudely tear apart",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The only wreath of household love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That binds her breaking heart.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "His love has been a joyous light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That o’er her pathway smiled,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A fountain gushing ever new,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid life’s desert wild.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "His lightest word has been a tone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of music round her heart,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Their lives a streamlet blent in one⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, Father! must they part?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They tear him from her circling arms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her last and fond embrace:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh! never more may her sad eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gaze on his mournful face.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Disturb the listening air:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She is a mother, and her heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is breaking in despair.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}