{
 "id": "phillis-wheatley/to-a-lady-and-her-children-on-the-death-of-her-son-and-their-brother",
 "title": "To a Lady and Her Children, on the Death of Her Son and Their Brother",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Phillis Wheatley",
 "poet_slug": "phillis-wheatley",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral",
 "book_slug": "poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 26,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1773,
  "venue": "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://github.com/standardebooks/phillis-wheatley_poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/phillis-wheatley_poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral",
  "file": "poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/409",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsonvarioussu273whea",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofphilliswh00whea_1"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-14"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O’erwhelming sorrow now demands my song:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From death the overwhelming sorrow sprung.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What flowing tears? What hearts with grief opprest?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What sighs on sighs heave the fond parent’s breast?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The brother weeps, the hapless sisters join",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ increasing woe, and swell the crystal brine;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poor, who once his gen’rous bounty fed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Droop, and bewail their benefactor dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In death the friend, the kind companion lies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in one death what various comfort dies!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Th’ unhappy mother sees the sanguine rill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Forget to flow, and nature’s wheels stand still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But see from earth his spirit far remov’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And know no grief recals your best-belov’d:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He, upon pinions swifter than the wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has left mortality’s sad scenes behind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For joys to this terrestial state unknown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And glories richer than the monarch’s crown.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of virtue’s steady course the prize behold!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What blissful wonders to his mind unfold!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But of celestial joys I sing in vain:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Attempt not, muse, the too advent’rous strain.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No more in briny show’rs, ye friends around,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Or bathe his clay, or waste them on the ground:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still do you weep, still wish for his return?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How cruel thus to wish, and thus to mourn?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more for him the streams of sorrow pour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But haste to join him on the heav’nly shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On harps of gold to tune immortal lays,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to your God immortal anthems raise.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}