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We've kept the faith. Our souls’ high dreams
Untouched by bondage and its rod,
Burn on! and on! and on! It seems
We shall have FRIENDS—while God is God!
From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922) edited by James Weldon Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.
Bowed beneath the dead'ning weight of Woe,
Crawling 'neath the galling yoke of Owe:
Obligation's hand
Beats him with his wand,
And his restless bed his burden knows!
'Neath stern Justice's ever grinding heels,
In Debt's prison now he sadly kneels;
Fettered with Due's claim,
In Memory of Frederick Douglass
In mem’ry of your truly noble life;
In mem’ry of the cause for which you fought;
In mem’ry of your fierce and bitter strife;
In mem’ry of the lasting good you wrought;
In mem’ry of the talents, really great,
That found a home within your massive brains
Written While a Soldier, at Fort Washakie, Wyo., for First Sergeant William Barnes, Troop "F," 10th Cavalry, on the Occasion of His Forthy-Fifth Birthday
Though forty-five long years, you say,
Have silvered o'er your head with gray,
Your friends rejoice, to-day, that you
Stand hale and hearty in your "blue."
Long for Old Glory you have stood