{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/tribute-to-a-lost-steamer",
 "title": "Tribute to a Lost Steamer",
 "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": 47,
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 63,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O! sing ye a dirge for the loved and the lost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That have found them a home ’neath the coral reefs deep;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That have laid them to rest ’neath the murmuring surge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the whistling wind wails o’er their sweet, but sad sleep.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They have gone to their home⁠—their last resting-place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The blue waves embraced and called them their own;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "While the depths of the sea and the billows thereof",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are mournfully sighing their sad requiem.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Down, down through the mass of the waters they sped,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid the dark chambers so mystic, so drear;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Till perchance they selected some ruby-lit bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sleep their last sleep ’mid jeweled gems rare.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O! ’tis sweet now to ponder, though many have gone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To that far-off bourne whence no traveller returns,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That the sea shall not always their bodies retain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Jehovah hath said, she must yield them again.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One bright little jewel outlived the dark storm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So fatal to many, yet⁠—blissful to tell⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His “Father in heaven” preserved him from harm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, parent rejoice! with your Louis ’tis well.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}