{
 "id": "georgia-douglas-johnson/toy",
 "title": "Toy",
 "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": 1925,
  "venue": "The Messenger 7.6 (June 1925)",
  "note": "Located in the issue scan at marxists.org under the heading “Toy” and signed “Georgia Douglas Johnson.”, in the same issue as “Friendship”. All eight lines agree with the corpus text.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/messenger/v7n06-jun-1925-Messenger-riaz.pdf",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/georgia-douglas-johnson-toy-1925"
  ]
 },
 "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": 8,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 32,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You deck my doby lavishly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m sleek and overfed;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet my soul is perishing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Denied of daily bread.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You make a plaything of my life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My every trust betray,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And when I would be penitent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You kiss my prayers away.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}