James Weldon Johnson Poems

I dreamed that I was a rose
That grew beside a lonely way,
Close by a path none ever chose,
And there I lingered day by day.
...

Some men enjoy the constant strife
Of days with work and worry rife,
But that is not my dream of life:
I think such men are crazy.
...

O whitened head entwined in turban gay,
O kind black face, O crude, but tender hand,
O foster-mother in whose arms there lay
...

No greater earthly boon than this I crave,
That those who some day gather 'round my grave,
In place of tears, may whisper of me then,
...

O mighty, powerful, dark-dispelling sun,
Now thou art risen, and thy day begun.
How shrink the shrouding mists before thy face,
...

How would you have us, as we are?
Or sinking 'neath the load we bear?
Our eyes fixed forward on a star?
Or gazing empty at despair?
...

'She's built of steel
From deck to keel,
And bolted strong and tight;
In scorn she'll sail
...

Eternities before the first-born day,
Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame,
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,
...

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
...

When morning shows her first faint flush,
I think of the tender blush
That crept so gently to your cheek
...