James Weldon Johnson

My heart be brave, and do not falter so, Nor utter more that deep, despairing wail. Thy way is very dark and drear I know, But do not let thy strength and courage fail; For certain as the raven-winged night Is followed by the bright and blushing morn, Thy coming morrow will be clear and bright; ’Tis darkest when the night is furthest worn. Look up, and out, beyond, surrounding clouds, And do not in thine own gross darkness grope, Rise up, and casting off thy hind’ring shrouds, Cling thou to this, and ever inspiring hope: Tho’ thick the battle and tho’ fierce the fight, There is a power making for the right.

Seems lak to me de stars don't shine so bright, Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light, Seems lak to me der's nothin' goin' right, Sence you went away. Seems lak to me de sky ain't half so blue, Seems lak to me dat eve'ything wants you, Seems lak to me I don't know what to do, Sence you went away. Seems lak to me dat eve'ything is wrong, Seems lak to me de day's jes twice ez long, Seems lak to me de bird's forgot his song, Sence you went away. Seems lak to me I jes can't he’p but sigh, Seems lak to me ma th’oat keeps gittin’ dry, Seems lak to me a tear stays in ma eye, Sence you went away.

Tiny bit of humanity, Blessed with your mother’s face, And cursed with your father’s mind. I say cursed with your father’s mind, Because you can lie so long and so quietly on your back, Playing with the dimpled big toe of your left foot, And looking away, Through the ceiling of the room, and beyond. Can it be that already you are thinking of being a poet? Why don’t you kick and howl, And make the neighbors talk about “That damned baby next door,” And make up your mind forthwith To grow up and be a banker Or a politician or some other sort of go-getter Or—?—whatever you decide upon, Rid yourself of these incipient thoughts About being a poet. For poets no longer are makers of songs, Chanters of the gold and purple harvest, Sayers of the glories of earth and sky, Of the sweet pain of love And the keen joy of living; No longer dreamers of the essential dreams, And interpreters of the eternal truth, Through the eternal beauty. Poets these days are unfortunate fellows. Baffled in trying to say old things in a new way Or new things in an old language, They talk abracadabra In an unknown tongue, Each one fashioning for himself A wordy world of shadow problems, And as a self-imagined Atlas, Struggling under it with puny legs and arms, Groaning out incoherent complaints at his load. My son, this is no time nor place for a poet; Grow up and join the big, busy crowd That scrambles for what it thinks it wants Out of this old world which is—as it is— And, probably, always will be. Take the advice of a father who knows: You cannot begin too young Not to be a poet.

A group of young men in Jacksonville, Florida, arranged to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday in 1900. My brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, and I decided to write a song to be sung at the exercises. I wrote the words and he wrote the music. Our New York publisher, Edward B. Marks, made mimeographed copies for us, and the song was taught to and sung by a chorus of five hundred colored school children. Shortly afterwards my brother and I moved away from Jacksonville to New York, and the song passed out of our minds. But the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children. Within twenty years it was being sung over the South and in some other parts of the country. Today the song, popularly known as the Negro National Hymn, is quite generally used. The lines of this song repay me in an elation, almost of exquisite anguish, whenever I hear them sung by Negro children. Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening 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 chastening 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 hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast 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.

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.

Look heah! ’Splain to me de reason Why you said to Squire Lee, Der wuz twelve ole chicken thieves In dis heah town, includin’ me. Ef he tole you dat, my brudder, He said sump’n dat warn’t true; W’at I said wuz dis, dat der wuz Twelve,widout includin’ you. Oh! . . . !—

(T HE M OB SPEAKS :) See! There he stands; not brave, but with an air Of sullen stupor. Mark him well! Is he Not more like brute than man? Look in his eye! No light is there; none, save the glint that shines In the now glaring, and now shifting orbs Of some wild animal caught in the hunter’s trap. How came this beast in human shape and form? Speak man!—We call you man because you wear His shape—How are you thus? Are you not from That docile, child-like, tender-hearted race Which we have known three centuries? Not from That more than faithful race which through three wars Fed our dear wives and nursed our helpless babes Without a single breach of trust? Speak out! (T HE V ICTIM SPEAKS :) I am, and am not. (T HE M OB SPEAKS AGAIN :) Then who, why are you? (T HE V ICTIM SPEAKS AGAIN :) I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull—and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong. Lessons in degradation, taught and learned, The memories of cruel sights and deeds, The pent-up bitterness, the unspent hate Filtered through fifteen generations have Sprung up and found in me sporadic life. In me the muttered curse of dying men, On me the stain of conquered women, and Consuming me the fearful fires of lust, Lit long ago, by other hands than mine. In me the down-crushed spirit, the hurled-back prayers Of wretches now long dead—their dire bequests. In me the echo of the stifled cry Of children for their battered mothers’ breasts. I claim no race, no race claims me; I am No more than human dregs; degenerate; The monstrous offspring of the monster, Sin; I am—just what I am. . . . The race that fed Your wives and nursed your babes would do the same Today. But I— (T HE M OB CONCLUDES :) Enough, the brute must die! Quick! Chain him to that oak! It will resist The fire much longer than this slender pine. Now bring the fuel! Pile it round him! Wait! Pile not so fast or high! or we shall lose The agony and terror in his face. And now the torch! Good fuel that! the flames Already leap head-high. Ha! hear that shriek! And there’s another! wilder than the first. Fetch water! Water! Pour a little on The fire, lest it should burn too fast. Hold so! Now let it slowly blaze again. See there! He squirms! He groans! His eyes bulge wildly out, Searching around in vain appeal for help! Another shriek, the last! Watch how the flesh Grows crisp and hangs till, turned to ash, it sifts Down through the coils of chain that hold erect The ghastly frame against the bark-scorched tree. Stop! to each man no more than one man’s share. You take that bone, and you this tooth; the chain, Let us divide its links; this skull, of course, In fair division, to the leader comes. And now his fiendish crime has been avenged; Let us back to our wives and children—say, What did he mean by those last muttered words, “Brothers in spirit, brothers in deed are we”?

Trade, Trade versus Art, Brain, Brain versus Heart; Oh, the earthiness of these hard-hearted times, When clinking dollars, and jingling dimes, Drown all the finer music of the soul. Life as an Octopus with but this creed, That all the world was made to serve his greed; Trade has spread out his mighty myriad claw, And drawn into his foul polluted maw, The brightest and the best, Well nigh, Has he drained dry, The sacred fount of Truth; And if, forsooth, He has left yet some struggling streams from it to go, He has contaminated so their flow, That Truth, scarce is it true. Poor Art with struggling gasp, Lies strangled, dying in his mighty grasp; He locks his grimy fingers ’bout her snowy throat so tender. Is there no power to rescue her, protect, defend her? Shall Art be left to perish? Shall all the images her shrines cherish Be left to this iconoclast, to vulgar Trade? Oh, that mankind had less of Brain and more of Heart, Oh, that the world had less of Trade and more of Art; Then would there be less grinding down the poor, Then would men learn to love each other more; For Trade stalks like a giant through the land, Bearing aloft the rich in his high hand, While down beneath his mighty ponderous tread, He crushes those who cry for daily bread.