{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/the-gift-to-sing",
 "title": "The Gift to Sing",
 "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": 33,
 "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": 15,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And blackening clouds about me cling;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, oh, I have a magic way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To turn the gloom to cheerful day⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I softly sing.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And if the way grows darker still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With glad defiance in my throat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I pierce the darkness with a note,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sing, and sing.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I brood not over the broken past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor dread whatever time may bring;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No nights are dark, no days are long,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While in my heart there swells a song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I can sing.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}