Poetry by James Weldon Johnson (top reads .txt) 📕

Poetry

By James Weldon Johnson.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Fifty Years To America O Black and Unknown Bards O Southland! To Horace Bumstead The Color Sergeant The Black Mammy Father, Father Abraham Brothers Fragment The White Witch Mother Night The Young Warrior The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face Sonnet Plácido’s Farewell to His Mother From the Spanish From the German of Uhland Before a Painting I Hear the Stars Still Singing Girl of Fifteen The Suicide Down by the Carib Sea I: Sunrise in the Tropics II: Los Cigarillos III: Teestay IV: The Lottery Girl V: The Dancing Girl VI: Sunset in the Tropics And the Greatest of These Is War A Mid-Day Dreamer The Temptress Ghosts of the Old Year The Ghost of Deacon Brown “Lazy” Omar Deep in the Quiet Wood Voluptas The Word of an Engineer Life Sleep Prayer at Sunrise The Gift to Sing Morning, Noon and Night Her Eyes Twin Pools The Awakening Beauty That Is Never Old Venus in a Garden Vashti The Reward Sence You Went Away Ma Lady’s Lips Am Like de Honey Tunk Nobody’s Lookin’ but de Owl and de Moon You’s Sweet to Yo’ Mammy Jes de Same A Plantation Bacchanal July in Georgy A Banjo Song Answer to Prayer Dat Gal o’ Mine The Seasons ’Possum Song Brer Rabbit, You’s de Cutes’ of ’Em All An Explanation De Little Pickaninny’s Gone to Sleep The Rivals The Creation Afterword Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing

Lift ev’ry voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod.
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light.
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God
True to our native land.

Fifty Years (1863⁠–⁠1913)

On the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation

O brothers mine, to-day we stand
Where half a century sweeps our ken,
Since God, through Lincoln’s ready hand,
Struck off our bonds and made us men.

Just fifty years⁠—a winter’s day⁠—
As runs the history of a race;
Yet, as we look back o’er the way,
How distant seems our starting place!

Look farther back! Three centuries!
To where a naked, shivering score,
Snatched from their haunts across the seas,
Stood, wild-eyed, on Virginia’s shore.

This land is ours by right of birth,
This land is ours by right of toil;
We helped to turn its virgin earth,
Our sweat is in its fruitful soil.

Where once the tangled forest stood⁠—
Where flourished once rank weed and thorn⁠—
Behold the path-traced, peaceful wood,
The cotton white, the yellow corn.

To gain these fruits that have been earned,
To hold these fields that have been won,
Our arms have strained, our backs have burned,
Bent bare beneath a ruthless sun.

That Banner which is now the type
Of victory on field and flood⁠—
Remember, its first crimson stripe
Was dyed by Attucks’ willing blood.

And never yet has come the cry⁠—
When that fair flag has been assailed⁠—
For men to do, for men to die,
That we have faltered or have failed.

We’ve helped to bear it, rent and torn,
Through many a hot-breath’d battle breeze
Held in our hands, it has been borne
And planted far across the seas.

And never yet⁠—O haughty Land,
Let us, at least, for this be praised⁠—
Has one black, treason-guided hand
Ever against that flag been raised.

Then should we speak but servile words,
Or shall we hang our heads in shame?
Stand back of new-come foreign hordes,
And fear our heritage to claim?

No! stand erect and without fear,
And for our foes let this suffice⁠—
We’ve bought a rightful sonship here,
And we have more than paid the price.

And yet, my brothers, well I know
The tethered feet, the pinioned wings,
The spirit bowed beneath the blow,