Poem by James Weldon Johnson

The Gift to Sing

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day--
  I softly sing.

And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow's somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note,
  And sing, and sing.

I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song,
  And I can sing.

1. And the Greatest of These Is War
2. Brer Rabbit, You's de Cutes' of 'Em All
3. An Explanation
4. De Little Pickaninny's Gone to Sleep
5. The Ghost of Deacon Brown

Print

1284 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version