{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/the-temptress",
 "title": "The Temptress",
 "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": 22,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Old Devil, when you come with horns and tail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With diabolic grin and crafty leer;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I say, such bogey-man devices wholly fail",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To waken in my heart a single fear.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But when you wear a form I know so well,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A form so human, yet so near divine;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis then I fall beneath the magic of your spell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis then I know the vantage is not mine.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah! when you take your horns from off your head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And soft and fragrant hair is in their place;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I must admit I fear the tangled path I tread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When that dear head is laid against my face.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And at what time you change your baleful eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For stars that melt into the gloom of night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All of my courage, my dear fellow, quickly flies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know my chance is slim to win the fight.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And when, instead of charging down to wreck",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Me on a red-hot pitchfork in your hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You throw a pair of slender arms about my neck,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I dare not trust the ground on which I stand.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Whene’er in place of using patent wile,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or trying to frighten me with horrid grin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You tempt me with two crimson lips curved in a smile;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old Devil, I must really own, you win.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}