{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/rev-samuel-weston",
 "title": "Rev. Samuel Weston",
 "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": 53,
 "container": "In Memoriam",
 "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": "in-memoriam.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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh! surely for thee were the gates ajar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As thy chariot onward sped,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When with brightened eye and youth renewed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Triumphant thou did’st tread",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the gates of death, to the portals bright,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the ransomed myriads sing,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Lift up your heads, ye Golden Gates,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let the aged pilgrim in.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No terrors for thee had the darksome vale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For like the wise virgins of old,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou keep’st thy lamp burning and trimmed from thy youth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till three-score and ten were well told.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And oft, as a shepherd, that tends his flock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou did’st then to still waters lead,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And ’mid the green pastures of justified grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou lovedst thy children to feed.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then Pastor and Leader, fond Parent, adieu,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the last, grand trump shall sound,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When shepherd and flock united once more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall echo a long harvest home.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}