O Black And Unknown Bards

O black and unknown bards of long ago,

How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?

How, in your darkness, did you come to

The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre?

Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes?

Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,

Feeling the ancient faith of prophets

Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?

Heart of what slave poured out such

As "Steal away to Jesus"?

On its

His spirit must have nightly floated free,

Though still about his hands he felt his chains.

Who heard great "Jordan roll"?

Whose starward

Saw chariot "swing low"?

And who was

That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh,"Nobody knows de trouble I see"?

What merely living clod, what captive thing,

Could up toward God through all its darkness grope,

And find within its deadened heart to

These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope?

How did it catch that subtle undertone,

That note in music heard not with the ears?

How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown,

Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears.

Not that great German master in his

Of harmonies that thundered amongst the

At the creation, ever heard a

Nobler than "Go down,

Moses." Mark its

How like a mighty trumpet-call they

The blood.

Such are the notes that men have

Going to valorous deeds; such tones there

That helped make history when Time was young.

There is a wide, wide wonder in it all,

That from degraded rest and servile

The fiery spirit of the seer should

These simple children of the sun and soil.

O black slave singers, gone, forgot, unfamed,

You — you alone, of all the long, long

Of those who've sung untaught, unknown, unnamed,

Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine.

You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings;

No chant of bloody war, no exulting

Of arms-won triumphs; but your humble

You touched in chord with music empyrean.

You sting far better than you knew; the

That for your listeners' hungry hearts

Still live, — but more than this to you belongs:

You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.