{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/sleep",
 "title": "Sleep",
 "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": 31,
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O Sleep, thou kindest minister to man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent distiller of the balm of rest,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How wonderful thy power, when naught else can,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To soothe the torn and sorrow-laden breast!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When bleeding hearts no comforter can find,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When burdened souls droop under weight of woe,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When thought is torture to the troubled mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When grief-relieving tears refuse to flow;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis then thou comest on soft-beating wings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sweet oblivion’s peace from them is shed;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But ah, the old pain that the waking brings!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That lives again so soon as thou art fled!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Man, why should thought of death cause thee to weep;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since death be but an endless, dreamless sleep?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}