{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/venus-in-a-garden",
 "title": "Venus in a Garden",
 "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": 38,
 "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": 19,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twas at early morning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dawn was blushing in her purple bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When in a sweet, embowered garden",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, the fairest of the goddesses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lovely Venus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Roamed amongst the roses white and red.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She sought for flowers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To make a garland",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For her golden head.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Snow-white roses, blood-red roses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that sweet garden close,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Offered incense to the goddess:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both the white and the crimson rose.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "White roses, red roses, blossoming:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the fair Venus knew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The crimson roses had gained their hue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the hearts that for love had bled;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the goddess made a garland",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gathered from the roses red.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}