{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/wanderers-return",
 "title": "Wanderer’s Return",
 "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": 10,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1891,
  "venue": "Sketches of Southern Life, enlarged printing (1891)",
  "note": "Not in the 1872 first edition: the scan of that edition on disk does not contain it, while the 1891 printing does. Whether it appeared in a periodical between those dates has not been established.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69249",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_sketches-of-southern-life-1872"
  ]
 },
 "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": 50,
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 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My home is so glad, my heart is so light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My wandering boy has returned to-night.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is blighted and bruised, I know, by sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I am so glad to welcome him in.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The child of my tenderest love and care",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has broken away from the tempter’s snare;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To-night my heart is o’erflowing with joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have found again my wandering boy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My heart has been wrung with a thousand fears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mine eyes been drenched with the bitterest tears;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like shadows that fade are my past alarms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My boy is enclasped in his mother’s arms.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The streets were not safe for my darling child;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where sin with its evil attractions smiled.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But his wandering feet have ceased to roam,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to-night my wayward boy is at home⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "At home with the mother that loves him best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the hearts that have ached with sad unrest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the hearts that are thrilling with untold joy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because we have found our wandering boy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In that wretched man so haggard and wild",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I only behold my returning child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the blissful tears from my eyes that start",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are the overflow of a happy heart.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have trodden the streets in lonely grief,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have sought in prayer for my sole relief;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the depths of my heart to-night are stirred,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know that the mother’s prayer has been heard.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If the mother-love be so strong and great",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For her child, sin-weary and desolate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh what must the love of the Father be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For souls who have wandered like you and me!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}