{
 "id": "phillis-wheatley/to-the-honourable-t-h-esq-on-the-death-of-his-daughter",
 "title": "To the Honourable T. H. Esq.; On the Death of His Daughter",
 "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": 33,
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
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 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "While deep you mourn beneath the cypress-shade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hand of Death, and your dear daughter laid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In dust, whose absence gives your tears to flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And racks your bosom with incessant woe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let Recollection take a tender part,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Assuage the raging tortures of your heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still the wild tempest of tumultuous grief,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pour the heav’nly nectar of relief:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suspend the sigh, dear Sir, and check the groan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Divinely bright your daughter’s Virtues shone:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How free from scornful pride her gentle mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which ne’er its aid to indigence declin’d!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Expanding free, it sought the means to prove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unfailing charity, unbounded love!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She unreluctant flies to see no more",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Her dear-lov’d parents on earth’s dusky shore:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Impatient heav’n’s resplendent goal to gain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She with swift progress cuts the azure plain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where grief subsides, where changes are no more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And life’s tumultuous billows cease to roar;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She leaves her earthly mansion for the skies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where new creations feast her wond’ring eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To heav’n’s high mandate cheerfully resign’d",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She mounts, and leaves the rolling globe behind;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who late wish’d that Leonard might return,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has ceas’d to languish, and forgot to mourn;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the same high empyreal mansions come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She joins her spouse, and smiles upon the tomb:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thus I hear her from the realms above:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Lo! this the kingdom of celestial love!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Could ye, fond parents, see our present bliss,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“How soon would you each sigh, each fear dismiss?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Amidst unutter’d pleasures whilst I play",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“In the fair sunshine of celestial day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“As far as grief affects an happy soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“So far doth grief my better mind controul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“To see on earth my aged parents mourn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“And secret wish for T⁠⸺⁠l to return:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Let brighter scenes your ev’ning-hours employ:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Converse with heav’n, and taste the promis’d joy.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}