{
 "id": "sarah-louisa-forten-purvis/a-prayer",
 "title": "A Prayer",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis",
 "poet_slug": "sarah-louisa-forten-purvis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1836,
  "venue": "The Philanthropist 1.11 (Cincinnati, 11 March 1836)",
  "note": "First located printing. The poem stands in that issue's poetry column immediately below “The Grave of the Slave”, which is itself a reprint of a Liberator poem of 1831, so this column reprints as well as prints and an earlier appearance has not been ruled out.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_cincinnati-weekly-herald-and-philanthropist_1836-03-11_1_11"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/sarah-louisa-forten-purvis_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/liberator1831garr",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1832-06-30_2_26",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1832-07-07_2_27",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1833-05-25_3_21",
   "https://archive.org/details/sn84031524_1833080301",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1833-12-21_3_51",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1834-01-04_4_1",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1834-01-18_4_3",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1834-02-01_4_5",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1835-06-27_5_26",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_cincinnati-weekly-herald-and-philanthropist_1836-03-11_1_11"
  ],
  "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": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Father, we lift the suppliant eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To where thou reigns’t above;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We feel that thou canst not deny",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The children of thy love.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Unshaken faith, unwavering trust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are all that we can bring;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We are thy children, though in dust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To thee we dare to cling.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We know that thou wilt not forsake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poor and trembling slave;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For him the blessed Saviour spake;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And him he came to save.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We feel the chains that bind us all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bend us to man’s will;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But can they hold our souls enthrall’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or bid our voice be still?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No:⁠—for thy power is all supreme,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy word shall yet stand firm;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And master and the slave shall e’en",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To thee for mercy turn.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}