{
 "id": "sarah-louisa-forten-purvis/the-slave-girls-address-to-her-mother",
 "title": "The Slave Girl’s Address to Her Mother",
 "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 1.5 (Boston, 29 January 1831), p. 18",
  "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. The volume, number, page and day come from that article's footnote 12, which cites the issue directly.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Louisa_Forten_Purvis"
  ]
 },
 "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": 22,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh! mother, weep not, though our lot be hard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we are helpless⁠—God will be our guard:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For He our heavenly guardian doth not sleep;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He watches o’er us⁠—mother, do not weep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And grieve not for that dear loved home no more;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our sufferings and our wrongs, ah! why deplore?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For though we feel the stern oppressor’s rod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet he must yield, as well as we, to God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Torn from our home, our kindred and our friends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in a stranger’s land our days to end,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No heart feels for the poor, the bleeding slave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No arm is stretched to rescue, and to save.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh! ye who boast of Freedom’s sacred claims,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do ye not blush to see our galling chains;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hear that sounding word⁠—“that all are free”⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When thousands groan in hopeless slavery?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Upon your land it is a cruel stain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Freedom, what art thou?⁠—nothing but a name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more, no more! Oh God, this cannot be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou to thy children’s aid wilt surely flee:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In thine own time deliverance thou wilt give,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bid us rise from slavery, and live.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}