Poem by James Weldon Johnson

Before a Painting

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
On canvas, from mere color, curve and line.
Silent I stood and made no move or sign;
   Not with the crowd, but reverently apart;
   Nor felt the power my rooted limbs to start,
But mutely gazed upon that face divine.

And over me the sense of beauty fell,
   As music over a raptured listener to
      The deep-voiced organ breathing out a hymn;
Or as on one who kneels, his beads to tell,
   There falls the aureate glory filtered through
      The windows in some old cathedral dim.

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

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