{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/fragment",
 "title": "Fragment",
 "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": 10,
 "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The hand of Fate cannot be stayed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The course of Fate cannot be steered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By all the gods that man has made,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor all the devils he has feared,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not by the prayers that might be prayed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In all the temples he has reared.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See! In your very midst there dwell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ten thousand thousand blacks, a wedge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forged in the furnaces of hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sharpened to a cruel edge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By wrong and by injustice fell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And driven by hatred as a sledge.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A wedge so slender at the start⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just twenty slaves in shackles bound⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet, which split the land apart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With shrieks of war and battle sound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which pierced the nation’s very heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still lies cankering in the wound.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not all the glory of your pride,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Preserved in story and in song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can from the judging future hide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through all the coming ages long,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That though you bravely fought and died,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You fought and died for what was wrong.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Tis fixed⁠—for them that violate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The eternal laws, naught shall avail",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till they their error expiate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor shall their unborn children fail",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To pay the full required weight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into God’s great, unerring scale.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Think not repentance can redeem,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That sin his wages can withdraw;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No, think as well to change the scheme",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of worlds that move in reverent awe;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgiveness is an idle dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God is not love, no, God is law.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}