Lift
every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the
list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling seas.
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 bought us;
Facing a 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 paths thro 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 hast by They might lead 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.
James Weldon Johnson