Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/114

92 special significance, and characterized by the qualities noted by Professor Matthews in “Fifty Years,” is the following:

O Southland! O Southland!

Have you not heard the call,

The trumpet blown, the word made known

To the nations, one and all?

The watchword, the hope-word,

Salvation’s present plan?

A gospel new, for all—for you:

Man shall be saved by man.

O Southland! O Southland!

Do you not hear to-day

The mighty beat of onward feet,

And know you not their way?

’Tis forward, ’tis upward,

On to the fair white arch

Of Freedom's dome, and there is room

For each man who would march.

O Southland, fair Southland!

Then why do you still cling

To an idle age and a musty page,

To a dead and useless thing?

’Tis springtime! ’Tis work-time!

The world is young again!

And God's above, and God is love,

And men are only men.