Explore "The Burdens of All" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
We may sigh o'er the heavy burdens / Of the black, the brown and white; / But if we all clasped hands together / The burdens would be more light.
How to solve life's saddest problems, / Its weariness, want and woe, / Was answered by One who suffered / In Palestine long ago.
He gave from his heart this precept, / To ease the burdens of men, / "As ye would that others do to you / Do ye even so to them."
Life's heavy, wearisome burdens / Will change to a gracious trust / When men shall learn in the light of God / To be merciful and just.
Where war has sharpened his weapons, / And slavery masterful had, / Let white and black and brown unite / To build the kingdom of God.
And never attempt in madness / To build a kingdom or state, / Through greed of gold or lust of power, / On the crumbling stones of hate.
The burdens will always be heavy, / The sunshine fade into night, / Till mercy and justice shall cement / The black, the brown and the white.
And earth shall answer with gladness, / The herald angel's refrain, / When "Peace on earth, good will to men"
Was the burden of their strain.