James Monroe Whitfield Poems

Oh great Jehovah! God of love,
Thou monarch of the earth and sky,
Canst thou from thy great throne above
Look down with an unpitying eye? -
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America, it is to thee,
Thou boasted land of liberty, -
It is to thee I raise my song,
Thou land of blood, and crime, and wrong.
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How long, oh gracious God! how long
Shall power lord it over right?
The feeble, trampled by the strong,
Remain in slavery's gloomy night.
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Yes! strike again that sounding string,
And let the wildest numbers roll;
Thy song of fiercest passion sing -
It breathes responsive to my soul!
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In the bright dreams of early youth,
I strung my lyre, and waked a strain,
In praise of friendship, love and truth,
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I love the man whose lofty mind
On God and its own strength relies;
Who seeks the welfare of his kind,
And dare be honest though he dies;
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There's music wheresoe'er we roam -
'T is heard in ocean's crested foam,
And in the billows' deafening roar,
Which madly burst upon the shore:
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The great, the good, the just, the true,
Has yielded up his latest breath;
The noblest man our country knew,
Bows to the ghastly monster, Death
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From bright West Indies' sunny seas,
Comes, borne upon the balmy breeze,
The joyous shout, the gladsome tone,
Long in those bloody isles unknown;
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When gathered in the courts above,
Before Jehovah's burning throne,
Archangels own his boundless love,
And cast their crowns of glory down;
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