{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/an-appeal-to-my-countrywomen",
 "title": "An Appeal to My Countrywomen",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1896,
  "venue": "Poems (Philadelphia: 1006 Bainbridge Street, 1896), page 72",
  "note": "Located in the 1896 scan on disk under the heading AN APPEAL TO MY COUNTRYWOMEN, the last poem in that volume’s contents. The volume’s copyright line reads “Copyrighted, 1895, by Frances E. W. Harper”, and the poem stands in the 1898 and 1900 printings as well. First located printing; an earlier periodical printing has not been ruled out.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsharper00harprich",
   "https://archive.org/details/poem00harp"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-on-miscellaneous-subjects-1857",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsonmiscellan00harp",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-1871",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69249",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007491600",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100774124",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-full-text-1895",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100488369",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-idylls-of-the-bible-1901",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100319488",
   "https://archive.org/details/historyofafrican00payn",
   "https://archive.org/details/WeeklyAngloAfricanI",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1858-05-14_28_20",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000500702",
   "https://archive.org/details/undergroundrailr00stil",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_sketches-of-southern-life-1872",
   "https://archive.org/details/25th-annual-report-of-the-board-of-managers-of-the-home-etc",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_light-beyond-the-darkness",
   "https://archive.org/details/ame-church-review-1900-04"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 56,
  "n_stanzas": 14,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You can sigh o’er the sad-eyed Armenian",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who weeps in her desolate home.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You can mourn o’er the exile of Russia",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From kindred and friends doomed to roam.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You can pity the men who have woven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From passion and appetite chains",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To coil with a terrible tension",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Around their heart-strings and brains.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You can sorrow o’er little children",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Disinherited from their birth,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The wee waifs and toddlers neglected,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Robbed of sunshine, music and mirth.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For beasts you have gentle compassion;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your mercy and pity they share.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For the wretched, outcast and fallen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have tenderness, love and care.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But hark! from our Southland are floating",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sobs of anguish, murmurs of pain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And women heart-stricken are weeping",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over their tortured and their slain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On their brows the sun has left traces;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shrink not from their sorrow in scorn,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When they entered the threshold of being",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The children of a King were born.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Each comes as a guest to the table",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hand of our God has outspread,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To fountains that ever leap upward,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To share in the soil we all tread.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When ye plead for the wrecked and fallen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The exile from far-distant shores,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Remember that men are still wasting",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life’s crimson around your own doors.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have ye not, oh, my favored sisters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just a plea, a prayer or a tear,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For mothers who dwell ’neath the shadows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of agony, hatred and fear?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Men may tread down the poor and lowly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May crush them in anger and hate,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But surely the mills of God’s justice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will grind out the grist of their fate.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, people sin-laden and guilty,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So lusty and proud in your prime,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The sharp sickles of God’s retribution",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will gather your harvest of crime.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Weep not, oh my well-sheltered sisters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weep not for the Negro alone,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But weep for your sons who must gather",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The crops which their fathers have sown.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Go read on the tombstones of nations",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of chieftains who masterful trod,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The sentence which time has engraven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That they had forgotten their God.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Tis the judgment of God that men reap",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tares which in madness they sow,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Sorrow follows the footsteps of crime,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Sin is the consort of Woe.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}