{
 "id": "phillis-wheatley/to-a-lady-on-the-death-of-three-relations",
 "title": "To a Lady on the Death of Three Relations",
 "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": 13,
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We trace the pow’r of Death from tomb to tomb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his are all the ages yet to come.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis his to call the planets from on high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To blacken Phoebus, and dissolve the sky;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His too, when all in his dark realms are hurl’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From its firm base to shake the solid world;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His fatal sceptre rules the spacious whole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And trembling nature rocks from pole to pole.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Awful he moves, and wide his wings are spread:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Behold thy brother number’d with the dead!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From bondage freed, the exulting spirit flies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond Olympus, and these starry skies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lost in our woe for thee, blest shade, we mourn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain; to earth thou never must return.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy sisters too, fair mourner, feel the dart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Death, and with fresh torture rend thine heart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weep not for them, who wish thine happy mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To rise with them, and leave the world behind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As a young plant by hurricanes up torn,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So near its parent lies the newly born⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But ’midst the bright ethereal train behold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It shines superior on a throne of gold:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, mourner, cease; let hope thy tears restrain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smile on the tomb, and sooth the raging pain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On yon blest regions fix thy longing view,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mindless of sublunary scenes below;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ascend the sacred mount, in thought arise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And seek substantial and immortal joys;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where hope receives, where faith to vision springs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And raptur’d seraphs tune th’ immortal strings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To strains extatic. Thou the chorus join,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to thy father tune the praise divine.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}