{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/the-ghost-of-deacon-brown",
 "title": "The Ghost of Deacon Brown",
 "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": 24,
 "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": 39,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "In a backwoods town",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lived Deacon Brown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he was a miser old;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He would trust no bank,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So he dug, and sank",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the ground a box of gold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down deep in the ground a box of gold.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He hid his gold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As has been told,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He remembered that he did it;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But sad to say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the very next day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He forgot just where he hid it:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To find his gold he tried and tried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he grew faint and sick, and died.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then on each dark and gloomy night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A form in phosphorescent white,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A genuine hair-raising sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would wander through the town.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as it slowly roamed around,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a spade it dug each foot of ground;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So the folks about",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Said there was no doubt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas the ghost of Deacon Brown.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Around the church",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This Ghost would search,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And whenever it would see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The passers-by",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take wings and fly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It would laugh in ghostly glee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hee, hee!⁠—it would laugh in ghostly glee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And so the town",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went quickly down,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For they said that it was haunted;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And doors and gates,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So the story states,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bore a notice, “Tenants wanted.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And the town is now for let,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the ghost is digging yet.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}