We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation ? Writing in the second half of the 19th century, Mary Weston Fordham was an African-American poet and teacher for the American Missionary Association, a Christian organization that played a major role in building schools for African-Americans following Reconstruction. Much of her poetry relates to religious and familial themes, especially the process of grieving for dead family members. She published her poetry in the collection Magnolia Leaves , which also contains a foreword by Booker T. Washington . Mary Weston Fordham was a significant literary figure whose work has stood the test of time. This public domain edition preserves the original text in its entirety, making it accessible to modern readers and scholars alike. Poetry has always been the most concentrated and powerful form of literary expression. The verse collected in Magnolia Leaves represents a high point of the poetic tradition, offering language of beauty and precision that speaks to the deepest levels of human experience.
