James Weldon Johnson
Professor Brander Matthews in his Introduction to Fifty Years and Other Poems speaks of “the superb and soaring stanzas” of the title-poem and describes it as “a poem sonorous in its diction, vigorous in its workmanship, elevated in its imagination, and sincere in its emotion.” Doubtless this will seem like the language of exaggeration. The sceptic, however, must withhold judgment until he has read the poem, too long for presentation here. Mr. Johnson’s poetical qualities can be represented in this place only by briefer though inferior productions. A poem of special significance, and characterized by the qualities noted by Professor Matthews in “Fifty Years,” is the following:
O SOUTHLAND!
O Southland! O Southland!
Have you not heard the call,
The trumpet blown, the word made known
To the nations, one and all?
The watchword, the hope-word,
Salvation’s present plan?
A gospel new, for all—for you:
Man shall be saved by man.
O Southland! O Southland!
Do you not hear to-day
The mighty beat of onward feet,
And know you not their way?
’Tis forward, ’tis upward,
On to the fair white arch
Of Freedom’s dome, and there is room
For each man who would march.
O Southland, fair Southland!
Then why do you still cling
To an idle age and a musty page,
To a dead and useless thing?
’Tis springtime! ’Tis work-time!
The world is young again!
And God’s above, and God is love,
And men are only men.
O Southland! my Southland!
O birthland! do not shirk
The toilsome task, nor respite ask,
But gird you for the work.
Remember, remember
That weakness stalks in pride;
That he is strong who helps along
The faint one at his side.
For pure lyric beauty and exquisite pathos, Wordsworthian in both respects, but no hint of imitation, the following stanzas may be set, without disadvantage to them, by the side of any in our literature:
The glory of the day was in her face,
The beauty of the night was in her eyes,
And over all her loveliness, the grace
Of Morning blushing in the early skies.
And in her voice, the calling of the dove;
Like music of a sweet, melodious part.
And in her smile, the breaking light of love;
And all the gentle virtues in her heart.