Page:Women of distinction.djvu/140

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WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.

selling wine at entertainments for church benefit. She has since written many articles for the Viginia Star, Planet, New York Globe, Industrial Herald, New York Freeman, Christian Recorder and the A. M. E. Church Review. The following are some of her subjects: "Paul's Trade and the Use He Made of It," "Notes to Girls," "Higher Education of Women," "The Hero of Harper's Ferry," "The Remedy for War," "Teaching as a Profession," and quite a number of other articles. Her writings have been published in the leading Afro-American journals of the country. Her writings have consisted of both prose and poetry. "Thoughts for Decoration Day" is one of her choice poetical writings, into which she seems to have put her whole soul. The following are only a few verses selected from this poem:

Throughout our country's broad domain,
In North and East and South and West,
In city street and village lane,
The nation pauses and takes rest.

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Yet honor we the men who gave
Their lives and all that makes life dear,
To save our land and free the slave
From cruel fate than death more drear.

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For women who, like Spartans brave,
Had tied the sash round soldiers gay,
And sent them forth a land to save,
And cheered them as they marched away.

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We are not one; an alien race.
Distinct, the negro dwells apart;
The crime of color his disgrace,
What matters brain, or brawn, or heart?