{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/the-snowdrop",
 "title": "The Snowdrop",
 "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": 4,
 "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": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "How comest thou, O flower so fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bud and bloom while wintry air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still hovers o’er the land?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How comest from the cold, dark earth?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That fostered thee and gave thee birth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Studding thy brow with snow.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Say, didst thou yearn for sunny bowers?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To gladden with thy pure, pale flowers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The valley and the hill?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Down in the darkness whence thou came,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hear’st aught of passion, fashion, fame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or even greed for gold?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And when the old earth’s bosom heaves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And scatters man like autumn’s leaves.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With its low thundered voice,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou sleep’st serene with eyelids closed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No earthquake shock breaks thy repose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till comes the breath of Spring.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}