James Weldon Johnson Poems

I hear the stars still singing
To the beautiful, silent night,
As they speed with noiseless winging
...

(On the Anniversary of Lincoln's Birth)

Father, Father Abraham,
Today look on us from above;
...

I knew not who had wrought with skill so fine
What I beheld; nor by what laws of art
He had created life and love and heart
...

Around the council-board of Hell, with Satan at their head,
The Three Great Scourges of humanity sat.
...

O brothers mine, to-day we stand
Where half a century sweeps our ken,
Since God, through Lincoln's ready hand,
...

Are you bowed down in heart?
Do you but hear the clashing discords and the din of life?
Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,
...

Enough of love! Let break its every hold!
Ended my youthful folly! for I know
That, like the dazzling, glister-shedding snow,
...

Twenty years go by on noiseless feet,
He returns, and once again they meet,
She exclaims, 'Good heavens! and is that he?'
...

Once der was a meetin' in de wilderness,
All de critters of creation dey was dar;
Brer Rabbit, Brer 'Possum, Brer Wolf, Brer Fox,
...

Skin as black an' jes as sof' as a velvet dress,
Teeth as white as ivory —well dey is I guess.
...