{
 "id": "georgia-douglas-johnson/lesson",
 "title": "Lesson",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Georgia Douglas Johnson",
 "poet_slug": "georgia-douglas-johnson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1924,
  "venue": "The Messenger 6.11 (November 1924)",
  "note": "Located in the issue scan at marxists.org, signed “GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON”, on the page whose running head reads “THE MESSENGER 359”, immediately after her “Romance”. All six lines agree with the corpus text. The month is not read off the page: the masthead leaf of this scan carries no text layer, so the issue’s date comes from the archive’s own listing of the file and from Lehigh, which agree.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/messenger/v6n11-nov-1924-Messenge-riaz-fix.pdf",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/georgia-douglas-johnson-lesson-1924"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/georgia-douglas-johnson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/georgia-douglas-johnson-the-heart-of-a-woman-full-text-1918",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103153234",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/georgia-douglas-johnson-bronze-full-text-1922",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000781515",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/poems-by-georgia-douglas-johnson-in-the-new-negro-1925",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000340210",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/georgia-douglas-johnson-an-autumn-love-cycle-full-text-1928",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102777177",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/georgia-douglas-johnson-poems-published-in-the-crisis-1910-1926",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000502434",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/poems-published-in-the-messenger-magazine",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000056822",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000064962"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 6,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I’ve learned of life this bitter truth:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hope not between the crumbling walls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of mankind’s gratitude to find repose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But rather,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Build within thy own soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fortresses!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}