{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/the-snowstorm",
 "title": "The Snowstorm",
 "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": 9,
 "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": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Gentle as a maiden’s dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Softly as the gliding stream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Falls the glittering, sparkling snow.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With its wealth of crystal pearls⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shining, pure-white coronals,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With its robe of silvery sheen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Decking earth like virgin queen.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As the noiseless flakes descend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As they downward quickly tend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Floating waves of downy snow.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Garnered from the upper realms;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Harvested by unknown hands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gulfed from cloudland’s brightest bower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sent to earth as richest dower.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Symbol pure, and emblem sweet!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Type of purity! ’twere meet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That many swell the strain attuned.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Clad with garb like angels wear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Robed in heaven’s holiest gear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pure, white snow, I welcome thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hymning lays of minstrelsy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}