{
 "id": "sarah-louisa-forten-purvis/hours-of-childhood",
 "title": "Hours of Childhood",
 "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": "“Blest hours of childhood! then, and then alone, / Dance we the revels gay round pleasure’s throne.”",
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1834,
  "venue": "The Liberator 4.3 (Boston, 18 January 1834)",
  "note": "The scan of this issue has no plain-text layer; the heading and the verse were read from its word-level OCR (djvu.xml).",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1834-01-18_4_3"
  ]
 },
 "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": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear cherished hours, how much ye tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all we’ve known, and loved so well!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On memory’s page there is a leaf,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bearing a trace of pleasures brief;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of schoolday mirth, of pastime gay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With which we whiled those hours away.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And those we loved in early youth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With all the fervency of truth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They seem to live, and pass us by,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With laughing lip and beaming eye.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each favorite spot, each winding stream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where we have watched the bright sunbeam,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Appears at memory’s magic spell⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And joys, to which we bid farewell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When grief and bliss are in the train",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of hours we ne’er shall live again;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When sorrow clouds our after years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fills our cup with bitter tears;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis then we wait a sigh to ye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O by-gone days of memory.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}