{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/a-requiem",
 "title": "A Requiem",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Mary Weston Fordham",
 "poet_slug": "mary-weston-fordham",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Magnolia Leaves",
 "book_slug": "magnolia-leaves",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 48,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1897,
  "venue": "Magnolia Leaves (1897)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/magnolialeavespo00ford"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/mary-weston-fordham_magnolia-leaves",
  "file": "magnolia-leaves.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/mary-weston-fordham-magnolia-leaves-full-text-1897-preface-by-booker-t-washington",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006775637"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 34,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O, insatiable monster! Could’st thou not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In pity turn aside thy venomed shaft",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From her my gifted, darling friend?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has sympathy within thy breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No trysting place? That thou must come",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At spring-time when the flowerets bloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bear my loved one to the tomb?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So young was she; life’s woes had not yet dimmed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The joyous sunshine of her girlhood’s days;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She did not quaff the dregs of time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, like some rosebud prematurely culled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She sped away, and o’er her grave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So peacefully the willows wave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dewdrops, her calm bosom lave.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Tread not the earth where sleeps my loved one’s form;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But place it lightly on her marble brow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bid birdies sing at set of sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To gladden Fannie’s lowly home;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bid rippling springs with shining spray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sylvan notes and songsters lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unite, to chase the gloom away.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Blest child! she did not tarry long, and yet⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, happy thought⁠—she did not live in vain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If truly she did seek and find",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The “Pearl of Price,” that precious boon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then ne’er to her could come too soon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The summons to an early tomb.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Blest child, rest! while gentle zephyrs breathe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their fragrance through the waving trees;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All nature decked in gorgeous array",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is reveling now, but soon alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like thee, ’twill fade. The autumn’s knell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will ere long peal like funeral bell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its dirgelike sounds, “Friend, fare thee well.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}