O Black And Unknown Bards Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDEDE FGFGHFHF IJIJKLKM NONOBPBP QRQRFSFS TSTSUFUF| O black and unknown bards of long ago | A |
| How came your lips to touch the sacred fire | B |
| How in your darkness did you come to know | A |
| The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre | C |
| Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes | D |
| Who first from out the still watch lone and long | E |
| Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise | D |
| Within his dark kept soul burst into song | E |
| - | |
| Heart of what slave poured out such melody | F |
| As Steal away to Jesus On its strains | G |
| His spirit must have nightly floated free | F |
| Though still about his hands he felt his chains | G |
| Who heard great Jordan roll Whose starward eye | H |
| Saw chariot swing low And who was he | F |
| That breathed that comforting melodic sigh | H |
| Nobody knows de trouble I see | F |
| - | |
| What merely living clod what captive thing | I |
| Could up toward God through all its darkness grope | J |
| And find within its deadened heart to sing | I |
| These songs of sorrow love and faith and hope | J |
| How did it catch that subtle undertone | K |
| That note in music heard not with the ears | L |
| How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown | K |
| Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears | M |
| - | |
| Not that great German master in his dream | N |
| Of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars | O |
| At the creation ever heard a theme | N |
| Nobler than Go down Moses Mark its bars | O |
| How like a mighty trumpet call they stir | B |
| The blood Such are the notes that men have sung | P |
| Going to valorous deeds such tones there were | B |
| That helped make history when Time was young | P |
| - | |
| There is a wide wide wonder in it all | Q |
| That from degraded rest and servile toil | R |
| The fiery spirit of the seer should call | Q |
| These simple children of the sun and soil | R |
| O black slave singers gone forgot unfamed | F |
| You you alone of all the long long line | S |
| Of those who've sung untaught unknown unnamed | F |
| Have stretched out upward seeking the divine | S |
| - | |
| You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings | T |
| No chant of bloody war no exulting pean | S |
| Of arms won triumphs but your humble strings | T |
| You touched in chord with music empyrean | S |
| You sang far better than you knew the songs | U |
| That for your listeners' hungry hearts sufficed | F |
| Still live but more than this to you belongs | U |
| You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ | F |
James Weldon Johnson
(1)
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