{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/to-a-babe-smiling-in-her-sleep",
 "title": "To a Babe Smiling in Her Sleep",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 14,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 36,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Tell me, did the angels greet thee?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Greet my darling when she smiled?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Did they whisper, softly, gently,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pleasant thoughts unto my child?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Did they whisper, ’mid thy dreaming,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thoughts that made thy spirit glad?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the joy-lighted city,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the heart is never sad?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Did they tell thee of the fountains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clear as crystal, fair as light,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the glory-brightened country,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never shaded by a night?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of life’s pure, pellucid river,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the tree whose leaves do yield",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Healing for the wounded nations⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nations smitten, bruised and peeled?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of the city, ruby-founded,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Built on gems of flashing light,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Paling all earth’s lustrous jewels,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the gates of pearly white?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Darling, when life’s shadows deepen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Round thy prison-house of clay,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "May the footsteps of God’s angels",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ever linger round thy way.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}