{
 "id": "sarah-louisa-forten-purvis/the-grave-of-the-slave",
 "title": "The Grave of the Slave",
 "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": 1831,
  "venue": "The Liberator (Boston, 1831)",
  "note": "Year from the Wikipedia article's poetry table, which is corroborated here two ways: every one of its seven other datable rows agrees with an issue of The Liberator read on disk, and the Standard Ebooks gathering this text comes from prints the poems in strictly chronological order of first publication, placing this one before the issue of 30 June 1832 whose printing was verified. The issue itself has not been read here. A reprint of the poem was read here in The Philanthropist of 11 March 1836, signed “Sarah Louisa”; that is a later printing, not this one.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Louisa_Forten_Purvis",
   "https://blackfreedom.proquest.com/the-grave-of-the-slave/"
  ]
 },
 "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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The cold storms of winter shall chill him no more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His woes and his sorrows, his pains are all o’er;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sod of the valley now covers his form,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is safe in his last home, he feels not the storm.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The poor slave is laid all unheeded and lone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the rich and the poor find a permanent home;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not his master can rouse him with voice of command;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He knows not, he hears not, his cruel demand.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not a tear, not a sigh to embalm his cold tomb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No friend to lament him, no child to bemoan;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not a stone marks the place, where he peacefully lies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The earth for his pillow, his curtain the skies.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Poor slave! shall we sorrow that death was thy friend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The last, and the kindest, that heaven could send?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The grave to the weary is welcomed and blest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And death, to the captive, is freedom and rest.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}