Fifty years Other Poems | Page 2

in the syncopated melody of so-called
"ragtime" which has now taken the whole world captive.
In poetry, especially in the lyric, wherein the soul is free to find full
expression for its innermost emotions, their attempts have been, for the
most part, divisible into two classes. In the first of these may be
grouped the verses in which the lyrist put forth sentiments common to
all mankind and in no wise specifically those of his own race; and from
the days of Phyllis Wheatley to the present the most of the poems
written by men who were not wholly white are indistinguishable from
the poems written by men who were wholly white. Whatever their
merits might be, these verses cast little or no light upon the deeper
racial sentiments of the people to whom the poets themselves belonged.
But in the lyrics to be grouped in the second of these classes there was
a racial quality. This contained the dialect verses in which there was an
avowed purpose of recapturing the color, the flavor, the movement of
life in "the quarters," in the cotton field and in the canebrake. Even in
this effort, white authors had led the way; Irvin Russell and Joel
Chandler Harris had made the path straight for Paul Laurence Dunbar,
with his lilting lyrics, often infused with the pathos of a down-trodden
folk.
In the following pages Mr. James Weldon Johnson conforms to both of
these traditions. He gathers together a group of lyrics, delicate in
workmanship, fragrant with sentiment, and phrased in pure and
unexceptionable English. Then he has another group of dialect verses,

racy of the soil, pungent in flavor, swinging in rhythm and adroit in
rhyme. But where he shows himself a pioneer is the half-dozen larger
and bolder poems, of a loftier strain, in which he has been nobly
successful in expressing the higher aspirations of his own people. It is
in uttering this cry for recognition, for sympathy, for
understanding,
and above all, for justice, that Mr. Johnson is most original and most
powerful. In the superb and soaring stanzas of "Fifty Years" (published
exactly half-a-century after the signing of the Emancipation
Proclamation) he has given us one of the noblest commemorative
poems yet written by any American,--a poem sonorous in its diction,
vigorous in its workmanship, elevated in its imagination and sincere in
its emotion. In it speaks the voice of his race; and the race is fortunate
in its spokesman. In it a fine theme has been finely treated. In it we are
made to see something of the soul of the people who are our fellow
citizens now and forever,--even if we do not always so regard them. In
it we are glad to acclaim a poem which any living poet might be proud
to call his own.
BRANDER MATTHEWS.
_Columbia University
in the City of New York._
FIFTY YEARS & OTHER POEMS
FIFTY YEARS
1863-1913
O brothers mine, to-day we stand
Where half a century sweeps our
ken,
Since God, through Lincoln's ready hand,
Struck off our bonds
and made us men.
Just fifty years--a winter's day--
As runs the history of a race;
Yet,
as we look back o'er the way,
How distant seems our starting place!
Look farther back! Three centuries!
To where a naked, shivering
score,
Snatched from their haunts across the seas,
Stood, wild-eyed,

on Virginia's shore.
Far, far the way that we have trod,
From heathen kraals and jungle
dens,
To freedmen, freemen, sons of God,
Americans and Citizens.
A part of His unknown design,
We've lived within a mighty age;

And we have helped to write a line
On history's most wondrous page.
A few black bondmen strewn along
The borders of our eastern coast,

Now grown a race, ten million strong,
An upward, onward
marching host.
Then let us here erect a stone,
To mark the place, to mark the time;

A witness to God's mercies shown,
A pledge to hold this day sublime.
And let that stone an altar be,
Whereon thanksgivings we may lay,

Where we, in deep humility,
For faith and strength renewed may
pray.
With open hearts ask from above
New zeal, new courage and new
pow'rs,
That we may grow more worthy of
This country and this
land of ours.
For never let the thought arise
That we are here on sufferance bare;

Outcasts, asylumed 'neath these skies,
And aliens without part or
share.
This land is ours by right of birth,
This land is ours by right of toil;

We helped to turn its virgin earth,
Our sweat is in its fruitful soil.
Where once the tangled forest stood,--
Where flourished once rank
weed and thorn,--
Behold the path-traced, peaceful wood,
The
cotton white, the yellow corn.
To gain these fruits that have been earned,
To hold these fields that
have been won,
Our arms have strained, our backs have burned,


Bent bare beneath a ruthless sun.
That Banner which is now the type
Of victory on field and flood--

Remember, its first crimson stripe
Was dyed by Attucks' willing