{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/brothers",
 "title": "Brothers",
 "poet": "James Weldon Johnson",
 "poet_slug": "james-weldon-johnson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Fifty Years & Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "fifty-years-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 9,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "Fifty Years & Other Poems (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsother00johnrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17884"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/james-weldon-johnson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_the_National_Association_for_the_Adv/AAs-AQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17884",
   "https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsother00johnrich",
   "https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/johnson/johnson.html",
   "https://archive.org/details/godstrombonessev00johnso"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 71,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 7
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "See! There he stands; not brave, but with an air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of sullen stupor. Mark him well! Is he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not more like brute than man? Look in his eye!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No light is there; none, save the glint that shines",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the now glaring, and now shifting orbs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of some wild animal caught in the hunter’s trap.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How came this beast in human shape and form?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Speak, man!⁠—We call you man because you wear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His shape⁠—How are you thus? Are you not from",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That docile, child-like, tender-hearted race",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which we have known three centuries? Not from",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That more than faithful race which through three wars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fed our dear wives and nursed our helpless babes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without a single breach of trust? Speak out!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I am, and am not.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then who, why are you?",
    "indent": 4
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I am a thing not new, I am as old",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As human nature. I am that which lurks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ancient trait which fights incessantly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against restraint, balks at the upward climb;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The weight forever seeking to obey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The law of downward pull;⁠—and I am more:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bitter fruit am I of planted seed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The resultant, the inevitable end",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lessons in degradation, taught and learned,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The memories of cruel sights and deeds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pent-up bitterness, the unspent hate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Filtered through fifteen generations have",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sprung up and found in me sporadic life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In me the muttered curse of dying men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On me the stain of conquered women, and",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consuming me the fearful fires of lust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lit long ago, by other hands than mine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In me the down-crushed spirit, the hurled-back prayers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of wretches now long dead⁠—their dire bequests⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In me the echo of the stifled cry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of children for their bartered mothers’ breasts.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I claim no race, no race claims me; I am",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No more than human dregs; degenerate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The monstrous offspring of the monster, Sin;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am⁠—just what I am.⁠ ⁠… The race that fed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your wives and nursed your babes would do the same",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Today, but I⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough, the brute must die!",
    "indent": 7
   },
   {
    "text": "Quick! Chain him to that oak! It will resist",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fire much longer than this slender pine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now bring the fuel! Pile it ’round him! Wait!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pile not so fast or high! or we shall lose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The agony and terror in his face.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now the torch! Good fuel that! the flames",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Already leap head-high. Ha! hear that shriek!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there’s another! Wilder than the first.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fetch water! Water! Pour a little on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fire, lest it should burn too fast. Hold so!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now let it slowly blaze again. See there!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He squirms! He groans! His eyes bulge wildly out,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Searching around in vain appeal for help!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another shriek, the last! Watch how the flesh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grows crisp and hangs till, turned to ash, it sifts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down through the coils of chain that hold erect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ghastly frame against the bark-scorched tree.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Stop! to each man no more than one man’s share.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You take that bone, and you this tooth; the chain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let us divide its links; this skull, of course,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In fair division, to the leader comes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now his fiendish crime has been avenged;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Let us back to our wives and children.⁠—Say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What did he mean by those last muttered words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Brothers in spirit, brothers in deed are we”?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}