{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/twilight-musing",
 "title": "Twilight Musing",
 "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": 26,
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I’m sitting by the hearthstone now,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my heart is lone and drear;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It seems as though the autumn blast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had left its impress there.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As memory, backward, wends its way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unfolding to my gaze",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Those joyful hours of “Auld Lang Syne,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those lights of by-gone days.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’m musing on the past, when I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In childhood’s thoughtless play,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Reveled in gladness, joy and mirth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor deemed one saddening ray",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Should ever cloud my gladsome heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or cause deep sorrow’s moan⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ne’er dreaming of the time, alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I’d be quite alone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’ve listened to the morning’s song",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of nature’s feathered gems,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Long ere Aurora’s roseate hue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Illumined Orient’s realms,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And as their carols wafted high",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On balmy zephyrs borne,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis then I muse, and sadly feel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I am quite alone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’ve never heard the ocean’s roar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or felt its quivering thrill;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor, on stern Neptune’s bosom been,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When all was calm and still⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But o’er my heart, at times, there are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such stormy billows borne,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That then I sadly, truly feel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I am quite alone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}