{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/prayer-at-sunrise",
 "title": "Prayer at Sunrise",
 "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": 32,
 "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": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O mighty, powerful, dark-dispelling sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now thou art risen, and thy day begun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How shrink the shrouding mists before thy face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As up thou spring’st to thy diurnal race!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How darkness chases darkness to the west,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As shades of light on light rise radiant from thy crest!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For thee, great source of strength, emblem of might,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In hours of darkest gloom there is no night.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou shinest on though clouds hide thee from sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And through each break thou sendest down thy light.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O greater Maker of this Thy great sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give me the strength this one day’s race to run,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill me with light, fill me with sun-like strength,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill me with joy to rob the day its length.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Light from within, light that will outward shine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strength to make strong some weaker heart than mine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Joy to make glad each soul that feels its touch;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Great Father of the sun, I ask this much.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}