{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/truth",
 "title": "Truth",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "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": 38,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A rock, for ages, stern and high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood frowning ’gainst the earth and sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never bowed his haughty crest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When angry storms around him prest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Morn springing from the arms of night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had often bathed his brow with light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And kissed the shadows from his face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With tender love and gentle grace.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Day, pausing at the gates of rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smiled on him from the distant West,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from her throne the dark-browed Night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Threw round his path her softest light.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet he stood unmoved and proud,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor love, nor wrath, his spirit bowed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He bared his brow to every blast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And scorned the tempest as it passed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One day a tiny, humble seed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The keenest eye would hardly heed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fell trembling at that stern rock’s base,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And found a lowly hiding place.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A ray of light, and drop of dew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came with a message, kind and true;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They told her of the world so bright,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its love, its joy, and rosy light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lured her from her hiding place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To gaze upon earth’s glorious face.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So, peeping timid from the ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She clasped the ancient rock around,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And climbing up with childish grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She held him with a close embrace;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her clinging was a thing of dread;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where’er she touched a fissure spread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he who’d breasted many a storm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood frowning there, a mangled form;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So Truth dropped in the silent earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May seem a thing of little worth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till, spreading round some mighty wrong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It saps its pillars proud and strong.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}